


manie sans délire

by behindthec



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Post 2x08, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2020-03-29 11:05:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19018636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behindthec/pseuds/behindthec
Summary: "Where are you going?""Come with me and find out."Post season 2. (Complete.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Title inspiration.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_insanity)
> 
> For my wife, who said, “You have to watch this show.”

Eve is awakened by a ghost—phantom pheromones and a lost fragrance clinging to sin-red fabric, the bouquet of expensive shampoo painted over sunshine blonde, the earthiness of sweat and blood between them. She smells everything first, before the throbbing pulse of her shoulder crashes through, scattering her senses to bits. 

Vision, sickly white, then hearing—steady beeps and the low hum of machinery, then—

_Memory._

_You are, you're mine._

_I love you. I do._

_Eve..._

Her vision sharpens, followed by the pain, trickling from the top down her left arm, dull and hollow like her thoughts. They must've given her the good stuff. 

Footsteps, crisp and cold, and her head turns. Nice to know it still can. 

"Oh good, you're awake." 

Carolyn scrapes a hard chair across the floor and sits stiffly, legs crossed, hands folded, and waits. 

Eve swallows. Her throat is dry as ash, but she doesn't want to drink. She doesn't want to come out of this. Not yet. Still, curiosity pinches her every last nerve until she can't stop herself.

"Where am I?"

"Florence. Rome was messy. This was safer."

_Rome._  

Eve's head spins through one flash of imagery after another, each worse than the last.

"Hugo..."

"Alive," Carolyn says off-handedly. "Pissed off. At you, mostly."

The guilt settles heavy in her bones, and she sighs. "Yeah."

"Where is she?"

Eve meets her eyes. "I have no idea."

"I’d assumed she was with you when she called."

"Called?"

"From a pay phone, just outside Hadrian’s Villa. She told us you’d been shot, told us where you were, and hung up."

Eve stares.

"What happened?" Carolyn presses. 

"She shot me."

"Well, that’s a twist. Why?"

"Because I was leaving."

"Why, after everything you did to get to her?"

"I... Raymond..."

"Ah, yes. My next question."

"He attacked her. He was going to kill her. I..."

"You...? With the  _axe_?" Carolyn's eyes widen slightly with interest. Eve can only nod dully. "Quite impressive."

"She... had a gun. She didn’t tell me, until... after."

"Sounds about right. She wanted to give you the chance to prove yourself."

Eve stares as hard as she can under the haze of morphine. How dare she reduce this to some sort of...  _game_?

"Are you kidding? She  _manipulated me_."

"So did we, for that matter. And besides, we manipulated her first."

"I didn’t—I wasn’t part of that."

"Does she know that?"

"Are you seriously...  _taking her side_?"

"I’m emphatically taking no sides, only pointing out how silly it is to be angry at her for behaving exactly the way you’d expect. You rescued her, she interpreted it as the declaration of loyalty that it was, then you abandoned her because it didn't pan out as neatly as you'd have liked. Perhaps you’re only angry because you realized she was right—you’re more like her than you think."

Eve  _can't_  think, only glare with as much indignation as she can muster, searching for something she's missed—but Carolyn is stoic as ever, even as she rises from her seat.

"You got a nice clean shot, at least. She was brutally careful. There was certainly no intent to kill." 

"Gee, I feel so much better."

Carolyn watches her, assessing. "There’s plenty of other work to be done at home, should you still care for a job."

"I don’t trust you."

"After all this I can’t say I trust you either, but now that she's out of the picture, I imagine you'll be far less... distracted."

Eve can't even imagine it. What would it be like, now? How ordinary it would be, and how impossible to consider a single moment not spent thinking about Villanelle.  _Less_  distracted would be a miracle.

"What about... I mean, is it even safe?"

"You’re under protection. Niko too." Carolyn pauses to read her mind. "The Twelve are still out there, but it’s not us they’re after."

Eve considers the implication. Villanelle is unsafe—for all Eve knows, she's already dead. Despite it all, the thought stings like the bullet and lodges itself inside her, just as heavy and invasive.

"You really have no idea where she might’ve gone?"

Eve shakes her head. No one deserves her hunches, least of all Carolyn.

"Wouldn’t tell me if you did, would you?"

"Nope."

Carolyn smiles curtly. "Feel better, Eve. For some reason, Kenny misses you."

-

  

There are no sweeping vistas of the Vecchio from the hospital, no fire-roasted rooftops towering over pale stone. Outside the city, safe, quiet, and empty, Eve lends the weight of her uninjured side to the door of her hotel room, steeling herself for the twelve hours remaining until her trip home. It hardly feels like home in the moment, but dimensions away, another life in another universe. Another Eve.

She knows she's not alone before the first breath of stale indoor air.

Pushing herself off the windowsill, Villanelle steps forward, leaving a murder-free distance between them.

"I don't have long." 

Eve swallows, dropping her bag to the floor. "Why are you here?"

The impenetrable face softens, eyes alight with a rare scrap of humanity. "I was hoping maybe you had forgiven me."

"For what? Shooting me or forcing me to kill for you?"

Villanelle's eyes darken, but without malice. "I didn’t  _force_  you. I invited... and you accepted."

"You deceived me. It was manipulation."

"It was an  _opportunity_."

"An opportunity for  _what_?! And at what cost? Did you even think for a moment what it would do to me?"

Villanelle smiles like she's already won. "What are you talking about? You were  _sooo_  angry that you couldn’t be my knight in shining armor—that you tried to save me from Aaron and it was all for nothing because I didn’t need saving. I gave you another chance!"

"That’s not—that’s not what I wanted!" Eve resists the urge to stamp her foot, put a hole through the crumbling wall. "That’s not how I wanted it!"

"Of course not. You want everything to go exactly the way you want because you’re an even bigger control freak than I am. Maybe you’re angry because you’re the one who needs saving—from the Twelve, from MI6, from Niko, from yourself. You want more, you _need_  more, and I can give you that, and it scares you." 

Eve closes into her space, ignoring the aura of wild aromas and crackling energy that surround Villanelle—her life force in a thousand senses.

"You don't give, Villanelle. You take, you possess, you use people."

"And what about you? You chased me down, told me how much you liked me, stabbed me just to prove something to yourself, then lured me back with a hit order and used me to help your career."

Eve is muted. The words sound so ridiculous, so far-fetched that for a moment she forgets they're completely, horrifyingly true.

She shakes her head, willing the pieces to fall into place. "That's not... no, I... I just wanted..."

"We all  _want_." Villanelle lunges, claiming more space, taking back the room, eyes set and target locked, but her voice tender in contrast. "We want someone to love, someone to love us back. Someone who knows what it's like to feel like you're the only one awake, with everyone asleep around you. I wanted to know we were the same, I wanted to know that you understood—but it wasn't just for me. You told me you wanted to know everything, to know how it felt to kill. Now you know."

"I didn't feel the same thing you do."

"How do you know?"

"Villanelle." Eve breathes heavily, forcing the words out. "You and I are not the same."

Villanelle smiles. "You know what I think? I think you’re ashamed that a part of you liked it. A part of you felt satisfaction."

"The only  _good_  thing I felt was relief that I'd saved your life."

"And why did you do that, Eve? Why did you want me alive? The job was finished. You didn’t need me anymore. MI6 didn’t need me. I was used. But maybe you knew that..."

"I  _didn't_ ," Eve snaps. "I didn't know. Carolyn never—I had no idea. When I found out, I was fucking pissed."

"But why? Why did you care that she played me? I'm just a psychopath assassin, remember?"

"She played all of us! She played  _me_."

"Don’t bullshit, Eve," Villanelle warns. "It doesn’t suit you."

"It's the truth!"

"But it doesn't explain why you saved me."

 _For fucking fuck's sake._ The goddamn imp is going to make her say it or die trying.

"I won't deny... that I... feel certain things for you. A... fascination, a fixation... an attraction that I can't characterize, can't... explain. Something that makes me want to... crawl underneath your skin and see how the gears work. I want to be inside your head, your body, I want to touch you and taste you and know you and understand you, even do normal things with you. Make breakfast. Watch movies." She looks away, unable to face the glimmer of hope that sparks to life in Villanelle's face. "But... I realize now that that's impossible."

"Why?"

"Because I was wrong. There isn't some big mystery lurking under your surface... there isn't some code to crack, some puzzle to solve, something that explains why you are the way that you are. I put you on this pedestal, glamorized everything that you are, but the truth is, you're just... you. And you know what? I still like you. A lot. As fucked up as that is. But I don't trust you. You're not capable of healthy relationships."

A wall appears behind brown eyes; the empty, defiant smile quick to follow.

"What do you know about healthy relationships? Or trust, for that matter? You chose your job over your husband. You lie to your boss, you tricked me into trusting you, you fired your biggest ally, and you used your colleague for sex."

"I'm not perfect, okay?!" Eve snaps. "But I do know that love isn't  _possession_. It isn't... chaotic, or dangerous, or toxic. It's... selfless, it's a partnership, it requires honesty and respect—"

"Are you kidding me? Love is  _completely_  selfish! People have relationships because it feels good, because they get something out of it. And if that goes away, they split up."

"Okay, fine, everything we do is inherently selfish if you want to get philosophical about it, but our  _actions_  can still be selfless. We can still make choices that benefit others, even if we're getting something out of it too."

Villanelle shrugs, unflinching. "You told me you wanted to know everything. To know whether you could do what I do—same reason you stabbed me. So I showed you. And yes, I  _got something out of it too_ ," she says pointedly, mocking in tone, "but according to your logic, that shouldn't matter."

Eve stares at her. Her brain is failing her at the worst possible time and it isn't  _fair_ , she captained her high school debate team, she's better than this, she  _is_.

"May I remind you," she states, straightening herself to her full height, "that  _you shot me_." 

Villanelle huffs. "I saved your life. The Twelve would've put a bullet through your skull in ten minutes if I'd let you walk out of there. And if you'd gone home, they would've killed Niko too. Mustache and all."

"You could've...  _said_  something, you—"

"I tried! You wouldn't listen."

"So your solution was  _to shoot me_?"

"I was angry, you'd just broken my heart."

She says it like it happened years ago, a long-lost spat between long-lost lovers, but the pain radiates from her eyes in a way that cuts deeper than the bullet.

"Villanelle," Eve says, "people don't shoot people they love."

It would be stupid to argue this point, and Villanelle isn't stupid. Instead, she stares her down until Eve's guard melts away.

"I will not hurt you again," she says at last.

Eve wants to look away, but it wouldn't be fair. She owes her this much.

"I can't be in a relationship with you. I'm sorry."

Villanelle pushes the tears back with a flinch of her features, a curt nod, pursed lips and darting glances around the room before facing Eve with renewed ambition.

"What if I promised never to kill again?"

"I don't believe you're capable of keeping promises."

"I promised I wouldn't kill you and I haven't."

"Yet." 

The desperation is visible, potent and excruciating, and for a moment, all Eve wants is to leap forward into her arms, take back what she lost. The hazy sense memory of Villanelle's touch, unappreciated in the chaos of Rome's aftermath—clammy hands clasped tightly as they routed their escape; a gentle caress across her cheek, down her arm, entwining their fingers; arms wrapped protectively around Eve, keeping her safe. Eve's entire body  _aches_.

"What if I changed?" Villanelle asks. 

Eve feels the prickle in her eyes all too late. Her cheek is wet, ticklish under the trail snaking down her face. "You wouldn't be the person I fell for if you did."

Villanelle shakes her head. "That is so unfair."

It is, and worst of all, Eve knows it.

Villanelle looks away then, retreating in on herself, and breathes sharply. A splash of tears finds their release, but she doesn't seem to care. She stuffs slender, trembling hands into her pockets and heads for the door.

Eve spins around. "Where are you going?"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

Eve responds with a choked sound, and Villanelle smiles miserably, bracing herself on the door frame.

"Kidding."

"Villanelle..."

The smile melts, warm and genuine as it settles into her dimples. "Come with me and find out."

Silence falls, and grows, and suffocates, erasing the smile with rough aggression until it leaves nothing but a marred, unrecognizable smudge in its place. Villanelle turns her head and disappears down the hall.

It isn't until the sound of footsteps fades entirely, leaving Eve in pin-drop silence, that she snaps back to consciousness. She hurdles past the open door, through the hall and down the stairs and spilling into the lobby, spinning on the spot to catch a glimpse of blonde. Past the glass doors, scanning the streets, but for nothing. She's chasing a ghost, drowning in the tight, agonizing compress of nostalgia through a flicker of deja vu—only this time, there lies the weight of history where there should be mystery—curiosity replaced by pain, memories instead of anticipation, excitement shattered by shattered trust.

This time, no one's chasing her back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"What is happy, Eve? No one is happy all the time. Are you? Look at all the people in the world that you think are normal and tell me they are happier, or that they like themselves better. I'm happy when I eat ice cream. I'm happy when I kill someone I don't like. I'm happy when I'm with you."_
> 
> _"So flattered to be part of that list."_
> 
> _"You should be. It is not a long list."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, guys. It’s so nice to be excited about a fandom again. And by excited I mean dying slowly inside. (It’s fine, I’m fine, we're all fine.)

  _ **(2 Weeks to Rome)**_

_The concrete stairs to Villanelle's loft leave Eve breathless and begging for the sweet release of death. It's been that sort of day._

_"Why did you do it?" she demands as greeting._

_Villanelle is seated at the elderly piano in her dressing gown, plucking an unskilled tune from warped, yellowing keys. She turns slowly with innocent-wide eyes, and folds her hands neatly in her lap._

_"Do what?"_

_" **Kill. Marie**."_

_"She was in the way! It worked, didn't it?"_

_"We could've worked around it!"_

_"Really? On our deadline? How?"_

_"I—I don't—" Eve wrenches her coat from her shoulders and hurls it toward the bed, buying time. "Someone could've seen you. You could've compromised the entire mission."_

_Villanelle smiles, deep into her dimples. "Eve. I am a professional."_

_"Yeah, well, you're risky. And you can't just kill people who get in the way!"_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because you **can't**!"_

_Villanelle sighs through an eyeroll like a fucking teenager trapped in a curfew lecture. She lifts a half-empty (half-full?) glass from atop the piano and offers it to Eve. "Have a drink."_

_"No!"_

_Villanelle raises an eyebrow, extends her arm an inch further, and to Eve's own surprise, she accepts ruefully, kills the wine in three gulps (not at all contemplating any lips that had touched the glass before). Big mistake—it is exquisite. Much like present company, she doesn't think. It should have been savored, slowly and with reverence (much like...)_

_"Killing someone doesn't hurt them," Villanelle breaks into her thoughts, meeting Eve in the center of the room to debate as equals. "Well, except for the teensy bit of pain, you know, when you kill them. But after that, they're fine."_

_"They're **fine**?!"_

_"They are gone! They don't feel anything anymore. They no longer suffer the burden of life, the—how do you say, slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."_

_"Shakespeare? Seriously?"_

_"Is it? Psh, figures. Men are so pretentious."_

_"Villanelle, it's not your choice to make. You can't just... play god whenever you want. Decide who lives and who dies."_

_"Sure I can. You can too."_

_"But it's not **right**!"_

_"What is right? Who says? We are all alive because someone else decided it, and we don't think that's wrong."_

_"But that's... that's... the only way to be alive. You can't... will yourself into existence."_

_"So it is someone else's decision. Why is it okay to give life but not take it? Life is not so great. I'm doing them a favor, really."_

_"That's not your call. Some people love being alive. You don't know if it's a favor or not."_

_"But what do they care? They're dead."_

_She looks so chill, so confident, like she's had this conversation a thousand times and won. Hell, she probably has._

_Eve collapses on the bed, legs dangling over the edge, but it's too too too familiar and it's terrible—so she slumps up to sitting and peers into Villanelle's eyes._

_"You're insane."_

_Villanelle shrugs. "Just because someone thinks differently than you doesn't make them insane. Maybe you are insane."_

_Eve stares some more, as if there's a clue carved somewhere into Villanelle's body. (Not that she'd ever care to strip her bare and find out.)_

_"Why do you enjoy killing people?" Eve asks after a long nothing._

_"I don't know." Her eyes go wide with feigned revelation. "Mayyybe, I just love to be in control. Or maybe I craaave the taste of blood, like a vampire! Or maybe I was raped as a child, or my dog died once, or the kids were mean to me at school, or Daddy didn't love me."_

_She punctures the illusion with a dramatic pout, and Eve rolls her eyes, deftly ignoring the horrifying possibility that each and every one of those could be true._

_"You never think about it?" she asks, trying to keep the judgment out of her voice. "You never ask yourself why? You never engage in any sort of... self-analysis?"_

_"It is a waste of time. Trying to figure out why I like something wouldn't change anything. It would just create clutter." She taps the side of her head for emphasis._

_"But... figuring things out about ourselves is the first step to change."_

_"I don't want to change."_

_"So you're... you're saying you're happy, with yourself, as you are?"_

_Villanelle laughs, plopping down on the opposite side of the bed, a cordial distance._

_"What is happy, Eve? No one is happy all the time. Are you? Look at all the people in the world that you think are normal and tell me they are happier, or that they like themselves better. I'm happy when I eat ice cream. I'm happy when I kill someone I don't like. I'm happy when I'm with you."_

_"So flattered to be part of that list."_

_"You should be. It is not a long list."_

_Eve stares at her and aches._

_If she didn't know better, she could identify in Villanelle a host of emotions allegedly present. Vulnerability. Longing. Pleading. Enough of each to make her heart pound, enough to distract her from the fact that Villanelle has inched closer, close enough to smell, close enough to raise the temperature of the air, close enough to trace a finger over Eve's jawline until every skin cell she owns is bristling with want._

_But Eve knows better._

_"...I should go."_

_Villanelle whispers, "Stay."_

_No, **no no no** , not yet, not like  **this** , she isn't ready, not here, not during this  **job** , this fucking mood-killing  **job**  that's draining the life out of them, not while Niko is—not here, not yet, not until Eve can stop being a pathetic fucking coward over how this feels._

_It is agony. She knows no one else gets to see this, gets the chance at what is being offered. Maybe it's a lie, but it isn't, is it? This is for her only._

_"I can't."_

_"Why not?"_  

_"Because you're a psy—"_

_She isn't even sure where the words came from. She didn't think it, she **doesn't**  think it—well, she  **knows**  it, but she doesn't cling to it, she doesn't define by it, fuck, she doesn't  **care**._

_Villanelle watches her, not offended, but still pulls herself out of Eve's space to be polite._

_"Do you know where the word 'psychopath' comes from?" she asks, answered by Eve's blank stare. "In Greek, psyche is the word for mind. Pathos means to suffer. A German shrink coined the term psychopastiche, which translates to 'suffering soul'."_

_"How poetic," Eve deadpans._

_"I think so too."_

_"But—that's everyone. Everyone's mind... suffers."_

_Villanelle smiles. "So we are all psychopaths."_

_Eve rolls her eyes, but Villanelle closes back into her space._

_"Are you afraid of me, Eve?"_

_"No."_

_She's not sure whether it's true. She's not sure whether she wants it to be._

_"Then what are you afraid of?"_

_Eve sighs heavily._ _What does she have to lose, anyway?_

_**Not much, anymore** , her brain supplies, and apparently that's enough._

_"I feel like... if I do... **this**... it implies that I... accept... who you are. The horrible things you've done."_

_"That is stupid," Villanelle says. "I don't accept your fashion choices but I still want to fuck you."_

_Eve laughs. Laughs, and laughs, hard and loud, until she can't sit up anymore, and she's collapsed on the bed, and Villanelle is laughing too, curled up beside her, and it's so **close** , too close, too much the same as last time and too jarringly different. How much better they know each other now—or perhaps, how much worse._

_Eve grants herself the moment: knees just touching; elegant fingers toying with a loose thread at the hem of Eve's stupid, stupid sweater that's keeping the rest of her skin out of Villanelle's reach. Eve's hands folded at her chest under strict orders from her brain, lest one escape to curl around Villanelle's hip, tug her close until their bodies meet, too little skin and too much cloth that could be too easily shed. She catches Villanelle's eye by accident, but it's too late. Pupils blown out across soft brown halos, dropping a glance at Eve's lips without a shred of subtlety._

_"I have to go."_

_She doesn't realize she's said it until the reaction. Small, the lightest quirk of a frown. No attempts to lure her back, persuade her, stop her._ _Should she be disappointed?_

_She's already scrambling to her feet and halfway across the room as she thinks it; all but tumbling down the stairs and out the door before she realizes she forgot her coat._ _Eve steels herself, harnessing some fantasy of an iron will, and reaches for the doorknob—which_ _opens before she has a chance. Villanelle stands there, head and smile both quirked to one side with Eve's coat slung over an arm. Bare legs extend for days below the cruelly short line of her robe, not that Eve dares to look._

_Villanelle proffers the coat, and Eve blurts, "Do you like me?"_

_It earns her a smile, bitten into submission, and fuck if that isn't the sexiest thing Eve has ever seen._

_"Am I supposed to mark yes or no?" Villanelle asks._

_Eve can only stare, exasperated._

_"I like you, Eve. I like you very much."_

_"Why?"_

_"Why does it matter?"_

_Eve had not thought this through._

_"I don't know."_

_Villanelle sighs, and the smile escapes._

_"I like you because you are difficult," she says. "You are confused, and a bit lost, but so **dedicated**. You are brave despite your fear. That makes you courageous. You try so hard to hold on but you are so desperate to let go. You have a rare passion. You want to be proud of who you are, of the things you want and feel, but you're not. Not yet. You want danger with an escape route, mania with a safety net. You don't know what you want and it's beautiful. You are beautiful. Like a goddess. You are smart, you are funny, you make me laugh, and your hair is spectacular. Is your ego satisfied yet?"_

_Eve works to harden the melted puddle inside her, summoning what she hopes is a glare._

_"We do not need a reason to like someone," Villanelle says, "which is good news for your conscience."_

 

 -

  

The coffee has gone cold by the time Niko finally speaks. They haven't really looked at each other yet, and by the time Eve realizes this may very well be the last cup of coffee they ever share, the last time they sit on adjoining sides of the breakfast table, she isn't sure she'll ever be able to look at him again. 

"How was Rome?" 

"You don't have to."

"Okay, what should we talk about then?" Niko asks brightly. "The fact that your girlfriend shot you, or that she murdered my coworker and left me for dead in a storage unit?" 

"She didn't..." Eve's voice drops under the weight of her guilt. "She kept you alive on purpose. She knew you'd be okay." 

"Oh! So this is 'okay' then? This is me being okay? Well, isn't she lucky to have you running to her defense! What a relief, and here I was all traumatized for nothing." 

"Niko, please." 

"Please what? What do  _you_  need from  _me_ , Eve? What can I possibly do to make this better for  _you_?" 

Eve looks at him then, because god damn if he's going to sit there and act like she hasn't suffered too. 

"I'm  _not defending her_ ," she says between teeth clenched so hard she can feel the headache snowballing into a migraine. "She  _shot_  me." 

"Was that enough to kill the romance, then? Or was that just her way of marking you as her possession?" 

He's just rambling for cruelty's sake, she knows, but the thought hadn't even occurred to her. Spat into words, it almost sounds plausible. 

"Okay," Eve says calmly with renewed strength. "If you want me to sit here, and beg your forgiveness, and list everything I've done wrong and everything I should've done differently to protect you, and me, and Gemma, and Bill, and everyone else, I will. But it's not going to make it better. It's not going to change anything and it's not going to fix...  _us_." 

"You're right," Niko says, and the sarcastic rage has faded. He just sounds heartbroken. 

Eve would feel the same, only she isn't sure there's still a heart inside her left to break. 

"So what do we do?" she asks. 

Niko draws a breath. He seems to have prepared words. 

"They've offered me protection." 

"Protection? They, who?" 

"Your... boss. Carolyn." 

"You've talked to Carolyn?" 

"She came to see me after... after what happened. She told me she could keep me safe, set me up somewhere, new name, new life, the works. If I wanted." 

"What, like witness protection?" 

"I guess." 

"Just you? What about me?" 

"I asked her that." He offers a hollow smile to his coffee, picking aimlessly at the fringe of his placemat. "She said I was welcome to ask you along, but assured me that you... 'wouldn't be interested'." 

Eve huffs. "Well that's not for her to say, is it?" 

He looks up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and Eve must have something left in her chest because it  _hurts_. 

"So you... you'd come with me? Give up the job, the... all of it? Start again, normal life? Normal...  _boring_... life?" 

Eve squeezes her eyes, willing away the sting. 

What scares her is she doesn't even have to think about the answer.

  

-

  

Six weeks, four days, and nine hours since Villanelle shot her—which would mean six weeks, four days, eight hours, and fifty-nine minutes since Villanelle last touched her. Eve isn’t thinking about that at all. She doesn’t think about it first thing when she wakes up, last thing before trying and failing to fall sleep, and definitely not once every minute.

It seems impossible, out of all the infinite possibilities of infinite outcomes, that they ended up here. Or rather, that Eve did. Villanelle could be in another dimension by now for all she knows.

She never even got to kiss her. Not even one. lousy. kiss. And so many chances, too...

She hates herself for trying to piece together what it would’ve been like, how it would’ve felt—conjuring some Picasso-esque fantasy based on what she knows: how surprisingly smooth Villanelle’s hands were, the warmth of her skin, the pillowy soft line of her lips, what she smelled like and how she breathed and how strong and protective her arms felt around—

“Kenny.”

“Eve. Oh my god.”

Eve hasn’t finished preparing herself for professional socialization, so colliding with the puppy dog she fired like the asshole that she is wasn’t the way she’d hoped to start her first day back.

“Um. Hi.”

“You’re back.”

“I’m... back.”

Kenny assesses her for a moment, then throws his arms around her until she squeaks.

“Oh. Fuck. I’m sorry.” He recoils, staring guiltily at her compromised shoulder. “Forgot.”

“No, it’s. It’s fine. First time I’ve been hugged in six weeks, so it’s worth the pain.”

“Oh.” 

"Hi." 

"Hi." 

She figures it's better to jump in headfirst. She's done playing safe and missing chances. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have to settle for imagining kisses that never happened. She might've even dodged a bullet. Literally. 

"I'm sorry I fired you." 

"I'm sorry you got shot." 

After a beat, she laughs. Kenny smiles. For a moment, she feels something more than lead in her stomach. 

"Please come work with me again."

"Oh—I am. Sorry, Mum put Jess in charge and she stole me back." 

"Oh. Okay. Yeah, that's—"  _Better than being unemployed, you reckless twat._  "That's fair. Okay. Thanks." 

They head to the office, side by side. Eve thinks she's doing okay, even breaths and all, but she must be kidding herself because it's not ten seconds before Kenny says, "What happened?" 

She sighs as they come to a mutual halt. Stares off into nothingness, letting her vision blur out of focus amid the gray expanse of wall. "I think I was gonna run away with her." 

Kenny's eyes widen. 

"—And then I wasn't. Because she lied to me." 

"So. You were mad because... a psychopath lied to you?" 

Eve smiles. "Yeah. So I... I backed out. I shot her down, and she... shot me." 

Kenny blinks. "I swear I will never understand women." 

Eve laughs heartily. She's okay. She might be okay. Someday, something will be okay again.

 

-

 

Hugo is less forgiving, but warms up proportionally with each cup of increasingly cold coffee that appears on Eve's desk.

 

-

 

It's working, a little. 

The job is not exciting but it's interesting. Female assassins have gone slightly out of fashion for the moment, so they're dividing time between tracking heist contracts and stalking a Russian mob boss. 

Male criminals are so  _boring_ , she thinks, and hears the words in a half-clipped, half-fluid Russian accent. 

But it's working. Eve stays in the office, in the field, on site, traveling or researching away from the house as long as she can manage before Jess reminds her to go home and shower because  _seriously, we eat food in here_. But the house is a shell now. Stale and devoid of Niko's presence, his smells, his clothes, his cooking. Eve misses him less than she would've imagined but she still  _misses_ , she misses and hurts, and longs, and longs, and longs. After awhile, she's not even sure what for. 

He didn't take much with him—part of the disappearing act, and all—but somehow that only makes the house feel colder. Empty with a sort of finality. Eve quickly forced herself to give up any hope that someone might randomly appear in her living room one evening, sprawled out with her arms confidently spread wing-like over the back of the sofa in either some ostentatious gown or ill-fitting rags stained with dirt and blood to match her face. 

She forces herself to do the things. Shower, make food (okay, order food), wash clothes, sometimes even put them away. She even cleans one weekend, and feels like she's on enough of a roll to check the post. 

A postcard nestled between catalogues and newspapers makes her heart skip a beat, but when she flips it over to an image of a giant cartoon tooth, she curses her dentist to oblivion. 

Bills. 

What looks like a belated birthday card to Niko. 

Bids for charity.  _More_ bids for charity, apparently, even one from the Alaskan Wildlife Fund—must be desperate if they're aiming this far from home. 

Eve squints at the return address: handwritten in all caps. Charities don't hand-write, do they? Not the big ones, at least. Not  _this_  handwriting, anyway, which looks entirely too much like— 

To hell with skipping a beat. She's certain she feels it stop, frozen in time, waiting for her to act. 

With the edges of the envelope pinched gingerly like a bomb between her forefingers and thumbs, Eve forces her feet back into the house and manages to sit without remembering quite where she is or how she got there. She sustains a paper cut in the trembling attempt to rip it open, but really, could anything be more apt. 

The paper vibrates in her hands as she unfolds it, and holds her breath. 

_Dearest Eve,_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You have an incredible capacity for impersonating normality, don't you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of this chapter brought to you by a nice Chianti.

**_(One Week to Rome)_ **

_"...Hello?"_

_"Hello, Eve.”_

_”Oh, good, you're alive."_  

_"Thank god, or I would have missed your adorable attempts not to sound like a jealous girlfriend."_

_"Oh, shut up."_

_"You were so worried about me."_

_"I was simply doing my job."_

_"Mhm. Do you really think he would kill me in the middle of the day during lunch? Where someone could see?"_

_"I don't know. You would."_

_"Yes, but I have many skills."_

_"Whatever, Xena. How did it go?"_

_"Where are you?"_

_Eve stares hard at Villanelle's front door. How does she **know**?_

_"Eve?"_

_"I'm, uh. Nearby. In the neighborhood."_

_"What neighborhood?"_

_"...Yours?"_

_Eve listens to a stupid bird chirp in an overhead tree for thirty stupid seconds, until the buzzer sounds._

_Villanelle is sprawled across the bed in a stupid gold dressing gown and bedazzled jeans, fiddling with her phone, and turns to offer Eve a shocked smile._

_"You got here fast."_

_Eve rolls her eyes._   _Villanelle props herself up on her elbow and pats the space beside her._

_"Why don't you have anywhere to sit?" Eve critiques even as she deposits her coat and collapses onto the bed._

_Villanelle raises an eyebrow, gestures to two small chairs tucked under the breakfast table, and Eve sighs. She forces her weary body to shift, arm folded under her head, face to face with this impossible being, where they lay for a long time._

_"Why have you never tried to kiss me?"_

_"I did, you stabbed me before I got the chance."_

_"Oh." Eve swallows thickly. "Right."_

_"Shame, too. I think you would've liked it."_

_They stare at each other (like always), but Eve makes the mistake of_ _thinking (like always), and Villanelle reads her mind (like always) and retreats to protect against some perceived rejection that Eve is certain would never, could never happen, not again, but timing, fucking timing and the moment is—_

_"I'm going to Rome."_

_"Wait. What? Seriously? He asked you?"_

_Villanelle nods blankly._

_"Oh my god, you're amazing."_

_Eve is sitting up, one hand clasped excitedly around Villanelle's arm, but she notices too late. Villanelle's eyes zero in on the contact, and her free hand lifts to cover Eve's. The skin on skin is wild, warm, too warm, why is she always so warm? Like the woman runs on pure fire._

_Eve pulls her hand away, slowly enough not to be rude, but Villanelle pushes herself up until they're eye level and asks softly, "Do you want me to try again?"_

_"Try wh—"_

_Oh._

_After an embarrassment of silence, Villanelle smiles, but it's far away._

_"Maybe after Rome," she says._

_And Eve, willing slave to every breath, every word, every look, says, "Yes."_

 

-

 

_Dearest Eve,_  
  
_I was going to start with "My dearest Eve," but I remembered you do not like to be possessed, so I had to get a new sheet. See, one of my good qualities—I'll never piss you off the same way twice._  
  
_Forgive me for not writing before. It is not because I was not thinking of you. (I was, I am, every day.) I was worried you might be monitored and I would be traced._ _If you're still alive, they must have lost interest by now. If they come after me, then at least I will have company. But don't worry, I have a shotgun now, and an axe (in your honor... just kidding, it is for firewood. Alaska has made me butch). I also have a very stupid dog who followed me home from the caf_ _é_ _in town and wouldn't leave. He is a little shit who sheds all over the bed and digs around in the fireplace soot. I named him Pakak, which means "one that gets into everything.” Just like us, right?_  
  
_Alaska is beautiful but boring. It would be more beautiful and less boring with you here. I understand now why you were angry and did not come. You were hoping I wasn't really everything you'd imagined me to be, so you could justify how you feel, but I am afraid I disappointed. I'm sorry._  
  
_I miss my job. Do you miss yours?_   _I have been learning more languages and taking photos at the national parks. I bought a fancy camera with fancy lenses but I am not very good at it yet. I can ice fish now, I made a friend who showed me how (do not be jealous, he is old and fat)._ _I_   _can't wear what I like here, so I've spent most of my fortune on flannel. You would laugh at me (unless you are into that)._  
  
_For a few moments here it was fresh air, the first breath of a new life. But now there is an itch under my skin, like fireworks shooting upward, ready to burst across the sky. I think maybe you know how it feels._  
  
_I think about you a hundred times a day. What you're eating, what atrocious clothes you're wearing, what movies you're watching, whether you think anything of me besides resentment. I wonder if you are still with Niko, or maybe someone else. I miss the smell and feel of your hair, your skin. The depth of your eyes. Your smile. It hurts to picture you smiling but I hope that you are. I hope you are happy. Or at least safe._ _I wonder if you're still at MI6, what you're working on. What boring murders you're investigating now, without me to show off for you._ _But I am teaching myself to hack like in the movies, so I'll find out soon enough. (Kidding, I won't stalk you. Except probably on Facebook.)_  
  
_There are things I want to tell you, but now is not the time. I hope there will be time—but_ _I_   _will not bother you again if you do not write back. I only wanted you to know that I am okay. I know, I know, it is arrogant to think you would care. But just in case._  
  
_If it makes you feel better to think of me dead and gone, I'm sure one day I will forget to feed Pakak and he will eat me in my sleep. Hold onto that thought._  
  
_Yours,_  
_  
_ _V x_

The sheet has gathered into ugly crinkles where it's clamped tight between Eve's fists, pulled taut enough to rip. She releases it, smoothing it flat across the coffee table, and recoils into the couch like it might explode.

She lasts two seconds before scrambling for it again, reading every few words over and over before moving on to the next. As if Villanelle herself might be hiding between the lines, some magnetic clue that will pull all the pieces instantly into place.

_I'll never piss you off the same way twice._

Eve stares straight ahead at the fireplace, desperate for the ability to summon the woman by sheer will for no other reason than to glare at her. What a load of rubbish. Villanelle's pissed her off in every which way at least nine times each.

 _Just like us, right_? 

_Us._

_Us..._

She ignores that part and tries hard to imagine Villanelle traipsing through the snow in oversized boots and a ushanka, cursing useless commands at the dog in every language she knows until she finds one that sticks. A huff of breath rushes out Eve's nose, the closest she's come to a laugh in weeks, until— 

_You were hoping I wasn't really everything you'd imagined me to be,_

No. That isn't fair. It isn't fair that Villanelle gets to call out the truth and not even have the courtesy to be here for Eve to lie her way through a defense.

_You would laugh at me (unless you are into that)._

Something low in Eve's belly tightens and warms. She's never had Villanelle's advances etched into permanence, hand-scratched onto paper, real and solid—not a passing moment that no one saw, a few skipped heartbeats she could deny. Seeing it like this makes her feel exposed, as if the simple act of reading is an admission.

_I think maybe you know how it feels._

_Do you, really?_  Eve counters angrily.  _Maybe?!_  

Villanelle knows damn well. Knows how it sets every cell of Eve's body on edge. Hours piled upon hours, little more than a gray blur while you ache for a splash of crimson—the confinement of one day stacked upon the last, crushed under the weight of the next, validated only by the echo of a half-remembered truth:  _I wake up and I think, again, really?_

_...think about you a hundred times a day..._

_...things I want to tell you..._

Eve slams one half of the sheet over the other, shutting the words out, but it's no use. Her brain has sprung to life, etched them into her memory, playing them over and over on a loop that won't stop—not when Eve is eating, not when she's brushing her teeth, not when she tries to go to sleep. Worst of all, there's no one around to share it with. No one can see this, ever, in a million years, no one else can look at this and say  _What the fuck_  so Eve can say  _I know, right?_ and maybe it would be a little less suffocating than bearing this all on her own, but she can't show anyone, can't even  _tell_ anyone, and Villanelle can go to a fine fresh hell for that.

 

-

 

Kenny takes one glance at the sheet of paper shoved in his face the moment they're alone, and looks back up at Eve. 

"Why are you showing me this."

”Because I need you to tell me what to do!" Eve whisper-shouts as her eyes dart toward the door. Kenny's eyes follow, but they appear to be searching more for an escape route than keeping watch for eavesdroppers.

"Please..." Kenny shakes his head, rolling his chair a few inches backward. "Please don’t make me." 

"But I  _need you_." 

"Do I even want to ask why?" 

"I need advice!" 

"I give rubbish advice."

"Oh Kenny, come on!" 

"Not in my job description." 

Eve sighs. "Please?" 

"Burn it." 

"What?" 

"That's my advice. Burn it." 

"I... can't, I'm not going to—" 

"Oh my god, you've already written back, haven't you?" 

"No! That's what I need help with." 

"You need me to... help you write to your girlfriend... who shot you?" 

Eve swats him with the letter. "I need to know if it's safe." 

"Safe to... write to a murderer?" 

"Come on, like, can it be traced, what if I'm being monitored, what if it's... intercepted." 

"Right. Well. I'd stay away from those stick-on return address labels, maybe get a PO box to match, you know, hers and hers." 

"Um. I meant... is it safe... for her." 

Kenny blinks. "You're completely mad. You know that, right?" 

"Yes." 

"Bonkers." 

"I know." 

"Do you?" 

" _Yes_."

 

-

 

Eve isn't bonkers. It's not a crime to write a letter. 

The problem is not having any fucking clue what to write. 

Eve hasn't written a letter since before the damn Internet. Villanelle couldn't possibly have just  _texted_  her, could she? That would've made things too easy, wouldn't it? Not dramatic enough, not romantic enough. Has to make a scene,  _has_  to be memorable, and anything Eve puts to paper will pale in comparison, even to this rubbish Villanelle's scribbled unevenly in appalling penmanship over both sides of the fancily embossed stationery that Eve definitely hasn't studied millimeter by millimeter, front and back. Villanelle probably trekked to the closest metro city in Alaska just to find it. Loves to make an event of everything. 

_Can we just text?_  Eve scrawls on a sheet of college-ruled she ripped out of a notebook, then promptly balls it up and tosses it aside. Like a frustrated author in a movie, half-empty bottle of Chianti and all.

_Dear Villanelle,_

Fuck. No names.

_Dear V,_

Christ on a stick, that sounds so fucking stupid. And besides, Villanelle is certainly not anyone she'd consider  _dear._  What is the proper etiquette for writing to someone you want to strangle (and only like 5% in the sexy way)?

_V_ ,

Might as well just stab her again.

(10%, max.)

_My beautiful tragedy,_

She skips a few lines. The greeting can wait.

_I had a dog when I was a teenager. He got into everything too, until my mom gave him away. I cried for three weeks._

Oh, brilliant.

_~~I'm sure Alaska isn't half as beautiful as you are.~~ _

It turns out that one cannot flirt via letter. Well, Villanelle can, apparently. Eve decidedly cannot. Not that she wants to, or would ever.

_Work is the same, so there's nothing to miss._

Lying now. Not remotely pathetic.

She pours herself another generously appointed glass, chugs it without grace, and rips her way to a fresh sheet, clenching the pen until her knuckles turn white and a tear splashes the dark varnish of the table, just at the letter's edge. It pools out to the paper, leaving a small, damp, flimsy spot that will dry wrinkled, exposing her.

With no shits left to give, Eve stabs angrily at the sheet. 

_To whom it may concern:_  
  
_I have no idea what to say to you._  
  
_You have an incredible capacity for impersonating normality, don't you?_  
  
_I've pictured it a hundred times now, all of it. You chopping firewood to blow off steam and kill time even though the shop in town probably sells it by the bundle. Taking your $7,000 Nikon to snap a picture of a caribou but getting bored after twenty minutes and wishing you'd brought your shotgun instead._   _You should look up dog training videos on YouTube. The reward system. He'll get fat off treats, but the other methods are cruel. You're not cruel._  
  
_I think about you too. Sometimes I think about how I wish I'd stabbed you harder. Sometimes I think I'll never forgive myself for not fucking your brains out when I had the chance. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I'd gone with you, if we really would've had spaghetti for dinner, and sometimes I wonder what it would be like if you'd never existed at all. I'd still be right here at this table, but nothing would hurt anymore. I would be bored, like you, bored and painless. And then I get angry with myself when I realize I wouldn't go back if I could._  
  
_I'm safe. I'm working. It's dull as a fucking bread knife without you. Niko is gone and sometimes I forget to eat. I can't sleep, and when I do, you're there. Half a world away and I still can't escape._  
  
_I don't think I remember what happy feels like. Do you?_  
_  
__Don't forget to feed your dog._

It's not until she's smacking stamp after stamp onto the envelope (just to be sure) that Eve realizes she's drunk. Unfazed by this revelation, she stumbles out her front door to the post box at the corner and drops it in, barely remembering to seal the flap with a swipe of her tongue, which feels oddly erotic in her current state.

_Go fuck yourself_  is her last bid for coherence before passing out in the recliner.

 

-

 

If she's Googling  _how long does it take a letter to get from London to Alaska_  first thing in the morning before she's even out of bed, she can blame it on the hangover.

 

-

 

Two weeks. 

Three weeks. 

Four weeks, and Eve decides that whatever she'd put to paper was enough to deserve the silence. 

When her phone buzzes on a Friday night, she's already two glasses past the point of recognizing a US area code. But there it is—in the words of Willy Wonka, black and white, clear as crystal—emblazoned across her lock screen.

_Wow, you are really bad at letters_ 🤔


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So this is how Villanelle has chosen to kill her. Not with a bullet, or a knife, or a hairpin—but with an agonizing, slow-motion seduction and no means to an end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God help me, I’m in lesbian overdrive after the Gentleman Jack finale.
> 
> Please enjoy.

**_(1 Day to Rome)_**

_The 10pm doorbell says Niko, has to be Niko, could only be Niko, but it isn't. Eve is surprised, somehow, to discover that it doesn't surprise her._

_Even more surprised to realize she doesn't seem to mind._

_Every thought of Niko evaporates as she absorbs the sight of Villanelle on her doorstep, hands bunched into the impractically small front pockets of her jeans. Her chest strains against a too-short yellow t-shirt emblazoned with the poop emoji. With her hair wrangled into a messy bun, several strands having made their escape to curl around her face (who could blame them?), she looks exceptionally small._

_"Hi."_

_Eve blinks. "What's wrong?"_

_"Nothing?"_

_"What are you doing here?"_

_Villanelle frowns. "I thought you might be lonely."_  

**_Thanks for the pity_**   _is Eve's first thought, but that's not fair. None of this is fair. Fair ended a long time ago._

_"Oh," she says instead._

_Villanelle's eyes widen a bit in defense. "I can go."_

_"No, no—I'm sorry. That's—no. I mean. Yes." She laughs, humorless, and presses her palms to her face. "I am."_

_"So let me in, I have booze."_

_Villanelle's smiling warmly when Eve looks up and notices the messenger bag slung over one shoulder._

_"I thought you might want something a little stronger than champagne," Villanelle says as Eve leads them into the kitchen, waving a bottle of Redbreast when Eve turns around. Eve catches sight of a "21" on the label and nearly loses her grip on the mismatched mugs between her fingers._

_"Isn't that shit like four hundred bucks?"_

_"Wouldn't know, love," Villanelle responds in a rolling Irish cadence, appraising the label. "Nicked it from Konstantin."_

_Eve chokes out a laugh over the sudden leap in the pit of her belly. Of fucking_ ** _course_  ** _she'd pick the one accent that makes Eve weak in the knees, and of course she'd fucking slay it._

_Shoving the mugs back in the cupboard, Eve digs for the pair of rarely used glass tumblers. "This calls for proper drinkware."_

_Villanelle pours ceremoniously, holds one glass out to Eve, and clinks her own gently against it._

_"To...?" Eve asks._

_"To hell with men," Villanelle says firmly. Eve throws her head back and laughs._

* * *

_"Do you want me to kill her?"_

_Eve snorts and sinks further into the cushion. Their feet almost touch on the coffee table, their glasses are empty (again), and their bodies seem to have gravitated closer to the center of the sofa with every sip, but Eve is not drunk._

_"Yeah," she says, grinning absently into the distance. Okay, maybe a little drunk. "No! God. I mean. Yeah. But no."_

_Villanelle quirks a smile. "I could strangle her with one of those pretty brassieres." Eve laughs harder. "Or smash her over the head with the music box you broke like the asshole that you are." Eve laughs herself breathless. "Is this funny to you, Eve? Murder is very serious."_

_Eve doubles over then, her head nearly in Villanelle's lap, but that's Villanelle's fault. Plying her with expensive liquor and fake-plotting the murder of Niko's stupid, boring, maybe-lover. Eve doesn't want to think about that, and Villanelle is quick to oblige. Suddenly, there are long, gentle fingers in Eve's hair, stroking with expert finesse. Occasionally a nail scrapes lightly over her scalp, setting her every nerve ablaze._

_"Don't do anything crazy," she mumbles._

_"Excuse me, whose head is in whose lap?"_

_"I mean in Rome." Eve wrenches herself up to sitting and tries to de-blur the two Villanelles in front of her. "Be safe, okay?"_

_Villanelle watches her carefully. "I will try."_

_Eve manages to focus the gorgeous blob of skin and blonde back into one person, and how exquisite that person is._

_"Do you want to kiss me now?"_

_Villanelle smiles. "No."_

_"Why not?!"_

_"Because you're drunk. And whiny."_

_"I am not!" Eve whines._

_And then Villanelle's hands are on her face, cupping her cheeks to hold her steady. Eve can feel her breath, smell her perfume and the sweet butterscotch of Irish whisky alongside a hint of chocolate from the M &Ms they'd shared, fought over, pelted each other with throughout the movie—still paused on ending credits across the room._

_Villanelle stares straight into her soul, then leans in. Her lips ghost over Eve's ear as she whispers, "I_   _want you to remember it."_  

_Eve wakes up on her sofa alone under a blanket, fully clothed, with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin on the coffee table. The glasses are cleared, TV off, and for a moment Eve wonders if she imagined it all—until the scrap of paper tucked underneath the remote._  

**_See you soon, baby.  
_** _**x** _

 

-

 

_Wow, you are really bad at letters_ 🤔

She hasn't even processed the words on her screen before a second chimes through.

_Except the part about wanting to fuck my brains out_

And a third:

_That was nice_

And a fourth:

😏 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

_I was drunk_ , she types and sends quickly. She  _is_  drunk, again, but Villanelle doesn't need to know that. 

Villanelle. 

She's talking to Villanelle. 

After six months of silence. 

Six months after Villanelle  _shot her_. 

That, Eve must not forget. 

Three dots animate on the left side of the chat, but somewhere in the past six months, Eve's patience died magnificently. She distracts herself by adding the nameless number to her contacts, replacing the  _V_  she could never bring herself to delete. For a moment, she reconsiders. Would code be safer? She wavers, then changes it to  _The OA_. She thinks it's clever (cleverer than the show, at least), but when the next message comes through, the name looks wrong, impersonal, and she changes it quickly back. 

_Does that mean you don't remember what you wrote?_

Eve rolls her eyes. _Not exactly_

_What about the part where you asked me to marry you?_ 👰👰 

_Nice try._

_Thank you  
_Then,  
_(We cannot ask Pakak to be the ring bearer because he will eat them and then we will have to hold up the ceremony until... well you know)_

Eve bites away the threat of a smile.  _I’ll bear that in mind_

🐕💩💍 

The smile wins.

_So... how are you?_  

_Oh no, you are bad at texting too._

Eve glares at the screen and punches back,  _Only when it comes to people who shoot me_

_Still mad about that?_

_I’d say so, yeah._

_Can I see?_

_See what?_

After a minute, a photo pops up and Eve stops breathing. She taps the expanse of golden skin and it jumps to full screen: a spread of Villanelle's hip all the way to her ribcage with a lacy strip of something disappearing beneath the hipbone. In dead center, the scar. Eve's mark.

_Do we match?_

Eve shuts her eyes.  _Not even close._

_Show me_

Fuck's sake.  _Why don't you just say "send nudes"_

_What must you think of me, Eve? I am a gentlewoman._

Like hell. 

Villanelle doesn’t deserve this, she doesn’t. She doesn’t get to ask anything of Eve, and Eve makes sure to remain fully conscious of that fact as she steps into the bathroom, unbuttons her shirt just enough to expose the afflicted shoulder, and positions herself in front of the mirror. She doesn't try to make it sexy, she really doesn't, because there's absolutely nothing sexy about showing off your bullet wound to the person who gave it to you.

She sends, and waits, which is embarrassingly unbearable despite the prompt reply.

_My aim is rusty. Too close to the bone. I apologize._

_Brilliant. Thanks._

_I really am sorry._

_It doesn’t matter._

_Does that mean we are even now?_

Eve rolls her eyes to the fucking ceiling.  _Fine._

_You have really beautiful shoulders._  

So this is how Villanelle has chosen to kill her. Not with a bullet, or a knife, or a hairpin—but with an agonizing, slow-motion seduction and no means to an end.

 

_-_

 

For the first time in six months, Eve wakes up to a text from not Kenny, about not work, that makes her not smack snooze and roll back over.

_Isn’t it fucked up how you get so much more jail time for murder than for rape?_  

Eve squints and drags the brightness scale to its lowest point, but the result is no less jarring. 

_Good morning to you too_ , she responds. 

_Good morning, but seriously. You have to live with rape forever. When you’re murdered, well, you don’t have to live with anything ever again._  

_What time is it in Alaska?_

_Vodka time_

Eve smiles and has no idea why.  _Go to bed_.

_I can't, the sun is out all night. It is annoying and perverse._

_So are you.  
_ _I have to shower.  
_Then, for good measure,  
_Please don't text me at work._

Villanelle texts her at work. On her way there, on her way in the building, and all through her first meeting. By the time she's nestled at her desk, Villanelle appears to have completed an entire conversation with herself that concludes with,  _Are you done working yet?_

_It's 10 o’clock. Be quiet._

_Don't you want to know what I found in the wood shed out back?_

_No_ , Eve lies. 

She makes it to lunch and angrily accomplishes nothing. 

_What did you find?_

Almost immediately, a picture appears. The lighting isn't the best, but sure enough, a giant beaver can be seen poking around a pile of firewood beside a shovel.

_You took so long to reply that I came up with nineteen beaver jokes  
_ _Do you want to hear them?_

_No_  

_1) Don't you want to see my beaver?_

_Please stop_

"What are you doing?" 

Eve jerks her head up to find Kenny standing by her desk with more than his usual aura of caution. "What?" 

"You're smiling. Why?" 

"No I'm not." 

"Yes you are." 

Fuck, she is. 

Eve straightens the line of her mouth. Kenny glances toward her phone, then quickly back to her with widened eyes. 

"Oh my god." 

Eve shushes him, scrambles to her feet and drags him by his arm into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind them. 

"Are you mad?" Kenny hisses. 

"We've established that." 

"You're texting her?" 

"No!" 

"Yes you are." 

"Yes I am." 

Eve must look as defeated as she feels, because something in Kenny's face gives up.

"Eve..." 

"I know. I know. Please don't tell anyone." 

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know." 

"She sent you flowers yet?" 

"What?" 

"I mean, I don't know the apology protocol after shooting someone..."

"Oh shut up." 

Kenny raises an eyebrow.

"I mean, she sent roses once, but that was a long time ago." 

That doesn't seem to help her case, but by the time she realizes she should stop saying things, it's too late. They stare at opposite walls, equally embarrassed on Eve's behalf, until Kenny gently pulls her back around. 

"Don't forget. Okay?"

"What?" 

"Don't forget who she is." 

Eve scoffs. "I don't even know who _I_ am." 

"So figure that out first."

 

-

 

Eve ignores her phone the rest of the day. Every time she reaches for it, Kenny's stupid, stupid words yank her back. She catches a glimpse of #14 ( _My wood shed brings all the beavers to the yard_ , which doesn't even qualify as a joke), and sets her phone to Do Not Disturb.

She'd expected to feel safer at home, but instead she feels exposed. Unprotected. There's no one to challenge her here, no one to drag her back down to Earth if she flies into the storm. She can't tell if the whisky she'd dug out of her closet is weighing her down or lifting her up. She feels like she might float away, or sink, or both, but she's definitely going somewhere. 

Villanelle had gone quiet in the afternoon, and Eve is too tired to pretend she doesn't miss her. At 11pm, she sends a badger emoji (close enough), and waits. 

And waits. 

And— 

_Eve, when are you going to talk to me for real?_  

Something not-alcohol swirls in the pit of her stomach, snakes its way upward and settles, fluttering, in her chest. 

_I don't know.  
_ _I don't know how.  
_ _I don't even know if I want to._

_What do you want?_

_I don't know.  
_The truth, not that Villanelle deserves it.  
_I want everything to be different. To have been different._  

_You still want a fantasy. Not reality._

_I did. I don't anymore, I just... I don't know._

_Would it make you feel better to scream at me?_

_Maybe  
_ _But you're not here._

_What would you do if I were there?_  

Oh, sweet lord. 

_I would probably punch you in the face.  
_Truth again.

_Is that all?_

_No._  

_Do you still want to know everything?_

_About you? Yes._  

Eve waits for the almighty pledge of three dots, but nothing happens. Thirty seconds. Forty-five. Sixty. 

Her phone rings.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's hard to follow these moments, increasingly frequent and proportionally bolder—the subtle, not-quite invitation to destroy the four thousand miles between them and prove to each other they still exist in the flesh._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two have already killed me; I'm just writing from the beyond.
> 
> Thank you for all your lovely feedback thus far. <3

**_(2008)_**

_"Tell me," she pleads, twisting a strand of Oksana's hair around her finger. "Tell me about your past."_

_"There is nothing to tell."_  

_"Please?"_

_The winter sun casts exposure over their bodies, the sheets, blinding and blissful, light bending at Picassian angles across the bedroom. It misses the cross on the wall by inches but finds Anna's skin easily, turning it nearly to white. Oksana searches for the symbolism, some romantic significance—light versus dark, the illusion of purity and loss of faith._ _She loves being here in late afternoon when it is brightest, so she can see every inch of Anna's body, every curve, every angle, every so-called flaw._

_Anna hates it._

_"That is the sort of thing you tell someone you have a future with." She stares hard into Anna's eyes. "Do you want a future with me?"_

_"I want to **know**  you," Anna says helplessly._

_It isn't fair, but Anna never is. She wants heart and soul but will give only her body in return. She wants to open Oksana up, peer inside like a museum exhibit, then put her carefully back on the shelf when the time is up—alone, hidden away._ ****

_"Ne me demande pas," Oksana says, turning away. "Ce n'est pas juste."_  

 

_-_

 

Apparently, Eve taps the green button and holds the phone up, because next thing she knows, Villanelle's voice is in her ear—low, rough, and unafraid. 

“So ask me." 

Her stomach flips. Might as well be a lifetime and a half since that low Russian timbre snaked its way into her ear, wrapped itself around her brain and wouldn't let go. 

"Ask you what?" 

"Anything." A soft sigh, then barely a whisper. "It's so good to hear your voice."

Eve swallows the heavy lump of truth in her throat, the  _You too_ , the  _I've missed you_ , the  _I thought I'd never_... 

"How will I know you're telling the truth?" 

"You won't."

“Was Anna’s husband the first person you killed?” 

The line goes thick with silence. Villanelle was not expecting this, Eve imagines. It gives her a twisted little thrill, catching her off guard like this. It reminds Eve of the only other time she managed it, took advantage of it—pressed the knife forward and betrayed whatever warped, foolish sense of trust Villanelle had placed in her. Maybe it was Eve's fault all along, all of it—what might they have become, what might Villanelle have become, or un-become, if Eve had never?

“No," Villanelle says at last.

“Who else?”

“My uncle.”

Eve thinks hard. This was never in the records, none of the research showed anything...

“How?”

“I crushed up a cocktail of his medications."

“...Why?”

“He was molesting my six-year-old cousin.” 

Jesus Christ.

For once, Eve wants desperately to believe Villanelle is making it all up—a show, a game—giving Eve the sob story she'd always hoped for, some sort of justification for Villanelle's shattered soul or lack thereof—but there is nothing showy or dramatic in her tone. It is tight, stiff, and matter-of-fact. Even half a world away, she is audibly uncomfortable. Eve has successfully rattled her.

It doesn’t feel as good as she’d imagined.

“How old were you?” she asks.

“Fourteen, I think.”

Eve swallows. “And no one ever...”

“It looked like an overdose. He had heart problems anyway. I wanted to do it differently, do it the way he deserved. But I was scared to get caught." 

"How... how did you want to do it?" 

"Let's just say Max got off easy. But he was a prick too, Anna just didn’t see because straight women are stupid.”

Anna wasn't, of course (straight, nor stupid), they both know. Villanelle is just spewing bitterness, each syllable tinged with agony and resentment—but every objection Eve may have has failed her. Words, breath, judgment, the lot of it. She feels empty but for the solid ache buried in deep in the center of her chest.

“Your turn,” Villanelle says. Her voice sounds forced, clipped with a rough, shaky edge.

“I..." Eve squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself to shift gears. "I don't have anything."

“Tell me about your family.”

“Um. My mom was an alcoholic. They got divorced when I was three, my dad moved us back to his home in Connecticut, and my mom drank herself to death a year or so later."

"Do you like your father?" 

"I did... very much. He died right after I finished college." 

"How?" 

"Heart attack." 

"He did not suffer, that's good." 

"Yeah." Eve assumes this is Villanelle's version of sympathy. “What about your parents?" 

"Oh, you know. My father was a mafia boss and my mother was an exotic dancer who hanged herself on my thirteenth birthday." 

"Bullshit."

Villanelle laughs, but it's empty. "Good girl." 

"Tell me the truth." 

"The truth is boring. Father was not nice, police did not care." 

"...Your mother?" 

"When I was twelve, he hit her in the head with a shovel and she never woke up."

In a single moment, it feels like like all the air has been punched out of Eve's chest. She opens her mouth to speak, but only a strangled squeak makes it past her tongue. 

"You don't have to say anything," Villanelle says. "She is not in pain anymore and he died in prison. Like father, like daughter."

Eve allows the quiet to fall naturally, abandoning her search for the right words. There are no right words, no words at all. There is nothing to fix, to comfort, to solve. What's heart-wrenching news to Eve is Villanelle's ancient history, dead and buried. 

"What happened... to you?" Eve asks. "After?" 

"I went to live with my uncle." 

Oh, god. 

“So we are both orphans,” Villanelle says. Her voice has brightened, artificially, like she's wrapping up a bedtime story. Eve wonders, perhaps presumptuously, whether after all this time she's learned to distinguish the reality from the act—or whether Villanelle had simply let slip a passing flicker of vulnerability and has sewn herself back up, never to be opened again. 

“Yeah," Eve says dully.

“See? It is not so hard to talk.”

“Speak for yourself." 

"Is my childhood trauma too much for you?" 

Eve can sense a twinge of sarcasm, but there's no malice behind it. 

"No," she says. 

"I've never told anyone about my uncle." 

Eve isn't sure she believes her, but it doesn't really matter, because her reply is truth enough for them both:

“I’m glad he's dead.”

“It made no difference. My cousin killed herself when she was fifteen.”

_Fuck._ “I...”

“We can talk about other things now if you want.”

“Um. Sure.”

“What is your most hated movie of all time?”

“I—“ Eve laughs. No one ever asks that. "I don’t know.”

“Think, this will be very important next time we have movie night.”

“You’re half a planet away.”

“We can watch over the phone. I’ll tell you lots of trivia. I am good at trivia.”

“Okay, I hate  _Titanic_.”

“You have a heart of stone, Eve Polastri.”

“It’s  _cheesy_!”

“It’s beautiful.”

“You are such a sap!”

“Sap?”

“Yeah—you don’t know that one?”

“Mm, I forget. Like on the tree? I am sticky?”

“Syrupy sweet, I guess.”

“If appreciating true loves makes me sap, then fine, I am sap.”

"I'd hardly call three days of teenage infatuation 'true love.'"

"That is because you are old and jaded." 

"Um, fuck you?" 

"Any time." 

"Okay, fine, what do you hate?" 

"I don't know.  _The Wizard of Oz_."

"What?! How? It's a classic!" 

"Classic is just code for 'you have to respect it because standards were lower back then.'" 

"Oh, whatever." 

"What, Dorothy is a little shit! She doesn't even  _try_  to give the slippers back. By law they would belong to next of kin. Elphaba has every right to them." 

"Of course you'd side with the witch." 

"Also it is offensive to little people. And wizards, quite frankly." 

Eve snorts. "Okay, so what do you like?" 

"Mm, lots. I like  _Silence of the Lambs_." 

"Of course you do. So do I." 

"Of course you do. What else? Come on,  _quid pro quo, Clarice_." 

Eve grins, but shivers. Even her fucking  _Lecter_ is on point.

"I dunno," she grumbles. "I'm  _old_ , remember? Lots more decades to think back on." 

"Last ten years, then." 

"Oh, damn.  _Inception_." 

" _Fuck_  yes. Put it on our watch list." 

"We don't have a watch list." 

"I will share my Netflix password." 

Eve tries to picture Villanelle scrolling through Netflix, yelling at the lack of selection or the mere existence of reality shows, maybe a bowl of popcorn on her lap. She wonders whether they might've ever been watching the same thing at the same time, never knowing. 

"I should sleep," Eve says. 

"Watch out for your dreams. I might try to plant an idea in your head." 

"What idea would that be?"

"Haven't decided." 

"How comforting." 

A soft giggle, a whispered wish for sweet dreams in flawless Korean, and the line is dead. 

Eve barely sleeps, half the night spent wondering if the past twenty-four hours really happened. When she does, there are no dreams, only flashes of light—a high-cheekboned smile; wide, fearless eyes and an outstretched hand that Eve reaches for—out, out, further and further, but never touches.

 

-

 

The truth is, she could use a friend. Even a retired assassin. 

That's the poorly reached conclusion she's settled upon to justify the unreal reality of her life. 

She's willed herself to stop questioning. Questioning brought Villanelle into her life, and questioning took her away—each a disaster in its own right. Questioning cost Eve everything, and even if she wouldn't go back, she's  _tired_. She's tired of looking for answers. The answers can damn well come or not, she doesn't care whether or when or how. She's going to say yes either way, yes to what she wants, and right now, she wants the morning texts, the lunchtime snapshots of Alaskan scenery and badly executed Bake-Off replicas, the after-dinner movies across an ocean and a continent, the spirited midnight debates, the whisper of half-awake  _goodnights_  that send her sleeping like the dead, and the unconscious smile that wakes her up, imagining the feast that awaits her hungry eyes. 

_What do you wear to sleep?  
_ _I wear nothing  
_ _I dreamt of you. You wore an aubergine gown and had a talking cat  
_ _Pussy symbolism?  
_ _(I really hope your pussy doesn't talk)  
_ _(I take it back, that could be fun)  
_ _Isn't it disappointing how all our childhood threats never really amounted to anything?  
_ _Quicksand... the Bermuda Triangle... kids trying to give you drugs...  
_ _Bullshit, drugs are expensive  
_ _You told me to remind you to put milk on your grocery list  
_ _Why did I agree to this? You have a smartphone, you lazy bum  
_ _Set your own reminders_

Eve ignores them. Usually. Sometimes. She'll answer her favorites, or the ones that annoy her. One morning she stays in bed and answers them all, only to learn later that Villanelle had gone for the day with a different phone.

She's not sure why it surprises her (how many more are there? who are they for?), the little crack in Villanelle's new bid at normalcy—a faint nod to the past. 

(You can take the girl out of the job...) 

Eve doesn't think about it. She doesn't wonder, and she doesn't question the twisty little lurch in her stomach every time it comes to mind, because Villanelle can do whatever she damn well pleases, always has. She doesn't owe Eve an explanation and frankly Eve doesn't care. It's not like they're  _dating_ , it's not like they're anything, they're just. Doing. This. 

Whatever this is. 

Tonight, it's  _Toy Story_ and "Who was your first crush?"

Villanelle makes an offended noise. "You are really going to ask me that while a potato is speaking?" 

"God, it's not like I asked you your favorite sex position." 

"My second year geography teacher. That's what made me want to travel."

"Man or woman?" 

"What do you think?" The smirk is audible. "And I don't have a favorite. Whatever will make her beg. Your turn." 

"I'm not telling you that!" Eve snaps in defense of the images that spring to mind, uninvited—Villanelle on her knees, on her back, looming over her, bent into every position imaginable, watching Eve with absolute ferocity. 

"I meant your first crush, you slut, but now you have to tell me." 

"I... I don't know." At the moment, she's not even sure she knows her own name. "I mean. I guess I like being on top." 

"Oh,  _Eve_ ," Villanelle laments, anguished. 

"What?!" 

"You straights, all you've got is 'top' or 'bottom'." 

"That's not true! And I'm not—I never said I was  _straight_ , but how the hell would I know what position I'd like with..." 

"...With a woman?"

"Yeah." 

"It's not a dirty word, you can say it."

"Oh, shut up." 

"I've flustered you. Let's get you back to a PG rating."

"Fuck you." 

"Not a great start. Who was your first crush, Eve?"

"Oh, jeez." Eve sinks further into the sofa, readjusting her shamefully sized bowl of crisps. "I don't even remember. I was pretty bookish, I thought boys were stupid until college." 

"What happened in college?" 

"In college I  _knew_ they were stupid." 

Villanelle laughs, unrestrained and beautiful. "Smart girl, what happened?" 

"Asshole. I met Niko when I moved back here. He was different." 

"Tell me he did not have the mustache. It is important for me to know you did not sign on for that." 

"No," Eve smiles. "He was much more... polished back then." 

"What about girls?"

"What about them?" 

"Were there... any... ever?"

Eve's face is suddenly hot for no reason. "Um. No, not... not like that. I mean. I really admired some of my female friends growing up, but... it wasn't... I mean I never..." 

"You didn't recognize it."

"I... I don't know." 

"I want to see pictures of you from college." 

"Um, hard pass. I had this wild idea freshman year that I could pull off chin-length hair."

"Please? I'll show you me when I was fat." 

"You were not!" 

"Oh, baby, I spent most of my childhood alone. I ate a  _lot_  of khachapuri." 

"What's that?" 

"Basically bread filled with cheese and egg. My grandmother taught me, it was the only thing I knew how to make." 

Eve wants to ask—a new piece in the puzzle—but now is not the time. She's gotten Villanelle back to herself, light and cracking jokes—out of the hollow, mechanical shell that had spoken about her family.

"That sounds amazing," Eve says.

"Hence fat. Come over, I will make it for you." 

"You want to fatten me up too? Wait, are you a cannibal?" 

Villanelle giggles like a child, then instantly transforms: "I do enjoy the occasional liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." 

Eve laughs. On screen, Buzz Lightyear tests out the stability of his new terrain. 

It's hard to follow these moments, increasingly frequent and proportionally bolder—the subtle, not-quite invitation to destroy the four thousand miles between them and prove to each other they still exist in the flesh, validating every impossibility that's happened between them for the past month. Year. 

The first time it happened, it took Eve a moment to catch her breath, a moment longer to catch her thoughts.  _(Is he really as big as he looks?_  Eve had responded to a picture of Pakak with his head in the garbage can, earning an anticipated  _That's what she said_  followed a minute later by,  _Come over and see for yourself_.) Now, it's become a running joke,  _come over and_... and she isn't sure what she's more afraid of: the possibility that Villanelle could be serious, or that she may not be at all. 

A quiet "Eve?" retrieves her from the depths of over-analysis as Buzz prepares to fall with style. 

"Hmm?" 

"I want you to know I am still working." 

Eve's fingers clench around the remote. Her thumb finds the volume button, punching it down a few notches. She is immediately, impressively sober. 

"Working," she repeats slowly. "By working you mean..." 

"Don’t  _worry_ , not  _murder_ ," Villanelle assures her with a flourish of drama. "And not for the Twelve, of course. But still not exactly... how would you describe it... legal?"

"How... 'not legal' are we talking?"

"Don’t worry about it." 

"What, I’m just curious!" 

"I’m not telling you, you will laugh at me." 

"What? No I won’t." 

"You will." 

"I won’t! I promise." 

There is silence, a good bit of it, then a long, defeated sigh. 

"Fine, I'm doing heist contracts." 

"Heist?" Eve tries to focus, to visualize. "Like... stealing?" 

"Mhm." 

"What... what do you steal?" 

"Oh, all the popular stuff. Picasso, Monet, Renoir..." 

"Wait. You’re. You’re an  _art thief_?" 

"Um, yeah?"

Ever the sophisticate, Eve bursts out laughing. 

"You are such an asshole," Villanelle deadpans. 

"I’m sorry!" Eve shrieks, nowhere close to stopping. 

"It’s not just art!" Villanelle snaps defensively. "Sometimes it’s cars, or jewelry, or... you know, other cool stuff."

"So you’re—" Eve is trying to stop, she really is— "You're like... Ocean’s One?" 

"See if I tell you anything ever again." 

"No, I'm sorry!" 

"Sometimes I have a team. But I prefer to work alone." 

It's too much, and Eve is breathless all over again. "I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I just pictured you in a robber mask and black spandex being lowered from a glass dome ceiling by a cable." 

"Let me guess, I am surrounded by laser beams."

"Yes!" 

Villanelle sighs. "If you’re into that, I could probably make it happen." 

Eve laughs harder. 

"I’m sorry," she pleads. "I’m done. Okay. I am." 

"So rude." 

"I’m sorry."

"It’s honest work, no one gets hurt!" 

"For you, it’s practically sainthood," Eve agrees, catching her breath. "Wait, wait. What's there to steal in Alaska?"

"I don’t do it here, silly. I travel."

Oh. 

"Oh." 

Well. Of course. And it's not like any of these artifacts would  _possibly_  exist in Europe, let alone... 

"Have you ever been... back here?" 

"London? Once." 

_Once_. 

Villanelle was here. Miles away, maybe less, and she never—not even for a moment, not even—did it even cross her mind? Has all of this been... 

"Why didn’t you come see me?"

"It wasn’t time," Villanelle says simply. 

Why does  _she_  get to decide that? Does Eve have no say? Why is this still her game, her call, after all this time? 

"Stop thinking," Villanelle says gently. "Tell me I'm wrong." 

Eve can't.

 

-

 

There is no nonsense, no stream of consciousness awaiting her in the morning, only a  _Happy Saturday_  followed by a string of carefully, chronologically curated emojis (🤠🥔🦖🐷🤖💀🍕👽🏎️🚀️🐶). 

_Thank god,_ Eve responds,  _I'm hungover as hell_

_Don't you have to work today?_

_Oh, fuck me_

And fuck Villanelle for remembering—but Eve doesn't even have time to feel sorry for herself, because a few seconds later an image appears, and Eve is suddenly, intensely alert. 

The first picture of herself that Villanelle has ever sent: a selfie with a crooked smirk, one raised eyebrow, and the barest shoulders Eve has ever seen, set against a backdrop of pillows and silvery sheets.

Eve can't look away. It's been a lifetime since she's seen this face, and nothing has changed. Sun-bright skin and elegant features, mischievous eyes and natural hair loose around her face, playful lips quirked into a smile that exists for Eve alone, and it's too much, too real, too achingly beautiful and too  _early_. 

Villanelle spares her the agony of organizing an appropriate response, and states simply,  _You need a vacation._

_I do_ , Eve agrees.

_Alaska is beautiful this time of year_

Eve stares at the words, heartbeat pounding her awake. A moment later, proof arrives in the form of an iced-over lake lined by evergreens. Brilliant strips of pink, orange, and purple bleed into one another across the sky. In one corner, Eve recognizes the wooden corner of a familiar shed. 

This—this goddamn Narnia fairytale—is where Villanelle  _lives_. Where she cooks and looks after her stupid dog, where she showers and packs before heading to the airport for the next job. This is where Eve might've been, too, the life she might have had, they might've shared, if only... 

She shuts her phone off until she's home, until the wine has meandered leisurely through her bloodstream, and relents only at bedtime to discover a mid-day text:

_I will be gone for a few days tomorrow (work)  
_And one more, early evening:  
_I'll miss you. x_

Eve hits the call button and doesn't wait for a greeting.

“You realize, if you keep this up, eventually, one day, you will be caught.”

She can hear Villanelle exhale—weary, resigned and ever unsurprised. “Why do you care?”

“Because I don’t want to talk to you through bulletproof glass!” 

The words seem louder, harsher in the silence, but hollow in the wake of what follows:

“At least I would get to see you.”

Eve stares at the wall across from her bed, letting the words echo, again and again, their earnest desperation imprinting on every nerve of her brain. Right now it feels impossible that she is here, as far away as can be from the only thing that makes her feel alive.

“You want to see me?” she asks pointlessly.

“Every minute of every  _fucking_  day.”

_God_. 

She tries to remember the last time she'd been the recipient of this kind of sentiment; this raw, limitless sort of passion—and comes up short. 

She doesn't think, then, only accepts the vulnerability she doesn't deserve—because really, when you break it down, Villanelle never owed her anything, not a single glance in her direction, yet here she is at the end of the world and still willing to risk it all.

“I hate this," Eve snaps. "I hate it." 

"I know." 

"I just..."

"I know."

"I want to see you, too." 

At first, Eve isn't quite sure she said it—after thinking it so many times for so long, silent and safe—but under the weight of the admission and a sigh of relief from half a world away, something breaks.

“So come see me.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"What do you want from me, Eve? You want me to spill my guts as penance for everything I’ve done to ruin your life? You want to go grave-robbing every corner of my brain and try to make order out of chaos before you decide whether you’re crazy enough to be in the same room with me again?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, this has stretched itself to 11 chapters.
> 
> This one is lovingly dedicated to all the women who've ever had to coordinate visits in a long-distance relationship. The struggle is real.

_**(2014)** _

_Konstantin doesn't make her anxious the way other men do. That's the first thing she notices—which is strange, because he looks like he could crush her skull between two fingers. Could, but wouldn't._

_It is a long car ride from the prison, but she doesn't say much. He makes conversation, asks her general questions about herself, nothing too prying, nothing upsetting, but she gives short answers—a sharp contrast to the fierce, vivid ball of mania who had persuaded him to take her. She is still assessing, watching him do things like change the radio or answer his phone. She needs the full trip to assess him. All the charm she'd lavished upon him upfront is in check, carefully guarded until she can decide how likely he is to betray her._

_It had seemed like a dream—a way out, a new life, a good life, a cool job and all the money she could want. But now, as the reality weighs down on her, sinks in deep and heavy, she wonders if it's too good to be true. Too good to last. Like everything (everyone) else._

_Out of nowhere, a truck swerves sharply in front of them and Konstantin slams the breaks, extending his arm out across the passenger seat to protect her—instinct, but hers is stronger. It happens so fast that for a split second, her brain shuts down and her body takes over, grabbing hold of his arm and twisting until he's trapped. The tires screech and the car jerks to a stop, snapping her back to her senses._

_He stares at her, and she stares back, fuzzy around the edges with adrenaline. He could easily pry her away with his free hand, but he stays in place, unmoving._

_"I'm not going to hurt you," he says in earnest. "We are partners now. You have to trust me."_

_"I don't trust anyone."_

_He sighs. "What other choice do you have?"_

_She releases him, as if she'd been in control at all, and stares far out her window, as far away as she can._

_Her trust is hard earned and easily broken. She wishes him luck._

_***_

_He stops in front of a door, identical to every other in the endless hotel corridor, and hands her a key card._

_"This is your room for the night."_

_"Where is your room?"_

_"Next door."_

_"Aren't you worried I will run away?"_

_"I'm the only thing keeping you from prison."_

_"Aren't you worried I will kill you in your sleep?"_

_He rolls his eyes. "Then how will you make any money?"_

_She rolls her eyes too, and pushes open her door with the small rolling suitcase at her feet. It was easier to loosen up after he'd fed her a proper meal._

_He follows her inside with the rest of her bags: an inaugural set of clothes, sundries, and the scattering of five-year-old items she'd had on her at the time of arrest._

_She flops down on the bed, swinging her feet over the edge. "Do you want to stay and watch a movie?"_

_"I can't, I'm sorry. I have calls to make. Tomorrow we must get you to Paris. Get you a flat. Start your training."_

_She wrinkles her nose. "I don't need training."_

_"Have you ever held a gun?"_

_She shrugs._

_"Do you know how to override a security system?"_

_She frowns._

_"How would you take down a man three times your size?"_

_"Shoot him in the balls?"_

_He raises an eyebrow. "With the gun you've never held?"_

_She makes a face._

_"You need training."_

_"Fiiine."_

_"And you will have to start eating more. Do some push-ups. You are prison skinny."_

_"I am sexy."_

_"What if you have to scale a wall? Huh? You need to be strong."_

_"I am strong!"_

_Konstantin presses his lips against a smile, then crosses the room to the small table at the window and takes a seat. He sets his elbow on the surface at arm-wrestling height and makes a fist. "Okay, let's go."_

_She glares at him, and he laughs. She likes his laugh, she decides._

_"Also, you will need a code name."_

_Her eyes widen. "Really?"_

_"Of course."_

_"Anything I want?"_

_"...Maybe."_

_"Bond. James Bond."_

_He rolls his eyes._

_"Hannibal?"_

_"You are not allowed to eat your targets."_

_"But what if they are beautiful women?"_

_"Then only their pussies," he smiles._

_She beams at him._

_"Wait, you think I'm serious? I'm joking!" He points a parental finger at her. "No sex with targets."_

_She pouts and falls onto her back, contemplating._

_"Think about it," he says, getting to his feet. "Pick a name you can live with."_

_"Or die with."_

_He smiles. "No dying on my watch."_

_She smiles back. It feels real, she thinks. Hard to tell. It's been awhile._

_"Goodnight, Oksana."_

_With the TV on mute for company, sh_ _e ravages her bags the moment he's gone and makes a night of it, modeling every new piece of clothing for herself (some incredible, some appalling but no less entertaining—he will have to let her do her own shopping from now on), each piece accompanied by a sampling from the mini bar. It is hours of decreasing sobriety_ _before she makes it to the small plastic bag: a time capsule, her life frozen at the moment it ended. Minus the blood-soaked clothes she'd arrived in, it's all intact: her wallet, the key to her old shithole of a flat, a pair of earrings, and a small handful of letters from Anna. They are painfully creased now, not from age but from being read and loved too much. She'd tucked them into a pocket, every day, so that no matter how bad it got, Anna was always with her._

_Her stomach flips, then sinks, as she unfolds the first. Part of her is itching to rip them to shreds, let her heart bleed out all over them, but she can't muster the courage. The worn paper shakes in her hands, words faded from a hundred strokes of her thumb over each letter._

_**Ma chérie, you are like a poem, but more beautiful than words.  
**_ **_Always with me, a song in my head.  
_ ** **_My heart beats to your rhythm..._ _ma belle villanelle._**

****

-

 

"So come see me."

It rings clear throughout Eve's body, the authenticity. This is no quip, no buried flirtation. Villanelle's voice is quiet but strong, caressing the sweet spot between invitation and demand. 

"...Eve?" 

"I want to know the rest," she says in lieu of an answer. 

"What rest?"  

"You were locked up. As a child."

"Off and on. Yes."

"You stabbed a kid at school."

"He tried to look up my dress."

"Arson?"

"I set the school on fire. Like  _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_."

"She was slaying vampires."

"How do you know I wasn’t?"

"Manslaughter of a minor?"

Villanelle sighs. It passes for tired, but Eve suspects she's hit another nerve. 

"My first girlfriend. We were at the detention center together. She went homophobic on me and threatened to tell. We got into a fight. It was an accident."

"Was it?" 

In the emptiness that follows, Eve knows she's pushed too far.

"What do you want from me, Eve? You want me to spill my guts as penance for everything I’ve done to ruin your life? You want to go grave-robbing every corner of my brain and try to make order out of chaos before you decide whether you’re crazy enough to be in the same room with me again?"

"No," Eve says firmly, but it sounds weak and pathetic after such a raw, convincing accusation. "I—I want—to understand."

"You won't, so stop trying. You'll make yourself crazy."

Her voice is still calm, but teetering on the edge. This is her limit, and Eve is picking away at thin ice. 

"I don't understand you either, you know," Villanelle says. "You and your boring life. But I'm okay with that, because I—" 

Eve waits, to no avail. 

"Because you what?" 

"I like you anyway," Villanelle says off-handedly. 

Eve closes her eyes, caught between an unsettling curiosity and a strange, comforting warmth that spreads over her. Nothing about this, about Villanelle, should be  _comforting_. She will only ever represent the chaotic unpredictable, the reckless risks that Eve dreams of taking and, when given the chance, instead runs far and fast in the opposite direction. 

"Is it safe?" she asks. 

"Is what safe?" 

"For me to come see you." 

Eve can just detect the hitch of breath across the line, and when she closes her eyes, she can almost see the smile that finds its way to Villanelle's voice. 

"I have been careful. But you know I am not exactly a risk-free investment."

Eve smiles. "When do you leave for... um... work?" 

"You don't have to say it like  _that_ , I'm not a prostitute."

"Oh, whatever." 

"Early morning." The smile is still there, radiating through every word. "Back on Friday." 

"So we'll... talk then."

"You really are a cruel mistress, aren’t you?" 

"Goodnight, Villanelle."  

"Eve. You can call me Oksana, if you want." 

Eve is so taken aback that she forgets the entire conversation, everything that came before. There is suddenly only this—this bizarre, inexplicable offering that doesn't quite add up.

"Is that what you want?" she asks.

"No, but I thought you might prefer it."

"Why?"

"It is more honest." 

Something deep in Eve's chest tightens.

"You don't owe me your past," she says. "And a name is just a name."

For a long time there is nothing, until Villanelle says finally, "Thank you."

"I mean, I could give you a nickname, if you want," Eve offers. "Something completely different. Something new..."

"Anything but 'pumpkin.'"

"Gross. I never understood that one. Why would you call someone you love a squash?"

For ten seconds, dead air spreads between them, and it takes precisely that long for Eve to catalogue her mistake.

"What did you say?" Villanelle asks. 

"Um. You know, pumpkin. Is a squash. Or technically a gourd, I guess. Is a gourd a squash?" 

Villanelle huffs softly, amused. Eve can feel the smile back in her voice before she's even spoken. 

"Goodnight, Eve." 

 

-

 

The cool, black air is clear and refreshingly breathable under the fog-hidden sky, and Villanelle is anxious to jump in. It's the best part, when it's over—to crank down the windows and inhale the fresh midnight offerings of whatever city she finds herself in—warm, humid florals or burning autumn leaves, on top of the world or beneath, mingling the stimulating scent of unfamiliarity with the heady, drunken rush of success. 

But this is the start, not the finish line. For now, she gets only a taste. 

Philippe shuts the windows, turns off the ignition, and flips on his phone's flashlight, giving them just enough to gather themselves and their equipment. Villanelle watches him crouch beneath the the van's low ceiling to adjust his vest, and when she's sure he's not looking, she tugs the black knit ski mask over her head. 

Philippe looks up and laughs. 

“Qu’est-ce que tu fais? I’ve already frozen the cameras.” 

"It's for my girlfriend." 

"She's not even here." 

Villanelle places her hand over her heart. "She's always here."

He laughs again as Villanelle smacks him with a pair of black leather gloves. "Tu es fou." 

"L'amour es fou," she replies confidently. 

"Put those on," Philippe tells her, nodding at the gloves. "You are not as anonymous as you used to be." 

Villanelle rolls her eyes. "Do not forget who is boss here." 

"Bien sûr,  _boss_. But you'll get caught," he chirps, and Villanelle groans. "Your  _petite amie_  will be all alone..." 

"Yeah, yeah." 

She yanks on the gloves and grabs an apple from the center console, taking a large, unladylike bite and chewing loudly. She should slap him in the face sometime, she thinks. He is a cheeky little shit who deserves it. Philippe, with his superhuman thieving skills and his lovely wife and his stupid little baby that looks like a Cabbage Patch doll. Villanelle told him as much when he forced pictures upon her on their very first gig, but he took it as a compliment, because he is too good, too kind, and she hates how it compels her to look after him every time a job brings them together.

She drops the half-bitten apple into the cup holder, swings open the door, and hops out of the van. 

"Je te déteste," she lies. 

Philippe laughs all over again. "Save it for therapy."

 

-

_Honey, I'm home._

The sound of her text tone is jolting. Eve's phone has been agonizingly quiet for three insufferably long days—seventy-two hours of wondering where Villanelle was, what she was doing, who she was doing it with, whether it went off without a hitch or whether she'd been caught—or worse. 

Eve punches the call button without a second thought. 

"Hello, gorgeous," Villanelle answers. "How was your week?" 

"I thought of every possible way you might've died," Eve blurts, struck dumb by the sweet relief of this madwoman's voice in her ear. 

"Really? I am flattered. And curious." 

"Um. How was it?" 

"Ugh. Challenging." 

"But you  _love_  a challenge." 

Villanelle groans. "There was a very pretty security guard who was not even remotely swayed by my feminine wiles." 

"Someone certainly thinks highly of herself." 

"What, I hate resorting to toxins. They're no fun." 

"Spare me the details." 

"On the upside, when she passed out I got to catch her in my arms." 

"...She's still alive, right?" 

"After one whiff of chloroform?" Villanelle laughs. "Headache at worst." 

"Lovely." 

"You're cute when you're jealous." 

"Oh, bite me." 

"With pleasure." 

Eve sighs and thinks,  _you're hopeless._  

"Have you always fancied women?" she asks suddenly. 

"Only as long as I've had eyes." 

Eve chuckles. "Have you ever been... interested in men?" 

"Interested? Not really. Men are boring. But I will tolerate them sometimes, if there are no other options." 

"Like off-brand Coke?" 

"Yes, exactly. Disappointing but, you know, keeps you hydrated, if you're lucky." 

Eve laughs. "I haven't  _hydrated_  in so long I'm surprised I'm still alive." 

The line goes heavy with tension, like all the oxygen just has drained from the world. 

Villanelle sighs weakly. "How do you expect me to leave that alone?" 

"I don't." 

Eve blinks. She can't quite believe the words left her mouth, until she hears Villanelle exhale—soft, slow,  _desperate_. 

" _Eve..._ " 

"When do you want me to come?" 

"...Shit, have you started?" 

"Oh my god—" (Oh my  _god_.) "When do you want me to come  _to Alaska_?" 

"Oh." Villanelle draws in a ragged breath, likely diverting oxygen back to her brain. "Wait. Really?"

"Yeah." 

"You're serious." 

"Yes." 

Time suspends beautifully, for an instant—nothing but the pounding bass of Eve's heart and the crackling air of anticipation. 

"Tomorrow?" Villanelle suggests. 

Eve laughs. "Not quite. Um. Lemme pull up my calendar." 

"Me too." 

Eve tucks her phone between her ear and her shoulder and scurries across the room to fetch her laptop. Shuffling sounds on the other line suggest Villanelle is doing the same, and Eve can barely think. 

"The fourth?" 

"Working," Villanelle sighs. "What about the ninth?" 

"Working, Copenhagen. Fuck." 

"Fourteenth?" 

"Um." Eve pauses, a light bulb zinging above her head, and sets the call on speaker to swipe through her apps. She taps the pink flower icon and skips to the following month. "Not the fourteenth." 

"Why not?" 

"...No reason." 

"Fifteenth?"

"...Anything after the twentieth." 

Eve prays for the earth to swallow her whole (and, more fervently, for Villanelle's scintillating powers of perception to fail just this once). 

"I can do the twenty-second," Villanelle says brightly. "Friday." 

Eve stares at her calendar, free and clear. 

"Friday..." she repeats in a daze. "I can, too." 

"I will buy your ticket. First class, all the upgrades." 

"What, no!" 

"I invited you, it's polite!"

"Thank you, but I'm buying my own ticket. You can buy me dinner."

"The restaurants here are shit. I will make you dinner. Gourmet, whatever you want." 

Eve smiles. "On the twenty-second." 

"Yes," Villanelle says. Her voice has fallen to something quiet, hazy. She sounds like Eve feels. "On the twenty-second." 

One month and change. Thirty-six days. 

Eve has thirty-six days not to lose her mind. 

Or her nerve.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"You’re the most interesting person I know. Besides me."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm heading out of the country for 10 days; here is my parting gift. Please don't hate me.

_On s'embrasse_  
_Pour effacer tous nos souvenirs_  
_Tout commence  
_ _Aujourd'hui_

_**(Mireille Mathieu, Nos Souvenirs)** _

 

-

 

_It was not so much a part of the training as it was the essence of training itself: of far greater importance than physicality or fearlessness, technicality or tempered nerves. Drilled into her since day one, it had transformed from a finely tuned skill into a sort of vital organ, like she couldn't exist without it. Dissociation, Konstantin had called it, but Villanelle preferred to romanticize it as rather a meditative state—the ability to exist entirely in the present, with only the mission in mind, head clear of all else. Nothing can get in, and nothing can get out. No distractions can penetrate; nothing can rattle you. You must be prepared for the slightest hitch, to improvise on a heartbeat's notice should anything go awry._

_It's peaceful, really. Villanelle slips into it like sinking into a hot bath, inviting the water to engulf your body, consuming more and more skin until even your ears are submerged, eyes closed, and for the moment you just... disappear._

_It is in this state, locked and loaded, that she exits the bathroom stall. Suspended in hyperfocus as she steps up to the sink, almost reaches for the faucet, when everything shatters._

_It doesn't make any sense, how one beautiful woman could shake her loose—even one with absolutely magnificent hair. And here she is, ready to pull it up, tie it back—a crime against her own beauty._

_Villanelle must have stared longer than she'd realized, because the woman catches on, slowly turns her head and stares back with uncomfortable concern._

_"Are you all right?"_

_Her eyes are sharp and searching, desperate for something—she probably doesn’t know what herself. She looks so determined, so set—yet so unsettled, too. Lost, and in a way... **bored.** Yearning for more._

_Feels familiar._

_Villanelle allows the mission to slide down the sides of her mind, lets gravity drag it out of the picture, just for a moment, just long enough to exist in another present, to let this strange connection pull her into its orbit._

_"Wear it down."_

-

 

Eve has no expectations. None. 

Neither should Villanelle, frankly, and Eve plans to tell her so, just as soon as she can decide what expectations, specifically, Villanelle should not have. 

What Eve doesn't expect is waking up to a cartoon image on her phone of a little Villanelle lookalike, holding an Aladdin lamp that's spewing purple smoke, across which is written  _Wish You Were Here_. 

Eve squints, twisting her head on the pillow.

_Is that supposed to be you?_ _How did you make that?_  

_Did you just ask me what a Bitmoji is_

_A what?_

_I love older women so much_ 💘

_Hey go fuck yourself_

_As a matter of fact I am_

Eve nearly drops the phone on her face _. How the hell are you typing?_  

_I have ten fingers, dear. Technically I only need one for each  
_ _(Don't get me wrong, I do prefer more. FYI)_  

Eve carefully tucks her phone under her pillow and stares up at the ceiling, rigid. 

It should not be this difficult to breathe first thing in the morning.

_-_

It is a whopping twenty-eight seconds after Eve sends the Outlook notice to her coworkers— _Eve OOO (Vacation)—_ that Kenny appears at her desk and stares. 

Eve smiles. "Hey." 

"Hi. Where are you going on vacation?" 

"Um, I don't know yet. I might not go anywhere. Just take some time off. Chillax. You know. Staycation it up. At home." 

Kenny blinks. "You're going to have a... chillaxing staycation." 

"I might, yes." 

Kenny stares harder, but Eve is prepared. If she can hold eye contact with Villanelle, she can hold it with anyone.

Eventually Kenny turns on his heel and retreats to his desk, and it's just enough time for Eve to celebrate silently when her phone buzzes. 

_Don't_ , Kenny says. 

_I don't know what you're talking about._

_What's Alaska like this time of year?_

Just seven words and Eve's heart is pounding. How could he—what the, how the  _fuck._  

_I never told you where she was._

_I'm the best hacker in British Intelligence._

Under any other circumstances, Eve would've smiled, warm and proud all over to witness such a rare display of his self-confidence, but all she can do is stare, dumbfounded, wondering what the hell else he's uncovered and simultaneously never, ever wanting to know. 

If Kenny can find her, who else can? What if the Twelve have a Kenny of their own? They mustn't, or she'd be dead. 

The fact that Eve finds comfort in this patchwork logic is not remotely pathetic.

Her cat-killing curiosity wins. No surprise there.

_What else do you know?_  she asks.

_I know it's not safe  
_ _She's not safe  
_ _And you won't be either_

Eve ignores him, but to no avail. The words sound out across her mind in Kenny's gentle, deadpan voice for the rest of the fucking day. To weird things up all the more, Villanelle falls unusually silent for the afternoon—no stream of texts for Eve to peruse upon her departure from the office, leaving her to wonder how Villanelle's died this time. 

_How's it going?_  Eve asks stupidly on her subway ride home. 

No response. Villanelle doesn't nap, it's the middle of the day in Alaska, and she isn't on a job. 

Not one that Eve knows about, anyway. Brilliant. 

She doesn't try again all evening, because somehow only Villanelle can pull off text-stalking without looking needy and pathetic (or if she does, she's infinitely better at owning it). It's bedtime when Eve's phone finally rings. 

"You alive?" she offers as greeting. 

"Hello." 

Eve blinks. Seriously? "...Hello." 

Villanelle takes a quick breath and pushes it out. "Eve, I feel I have not been entirely honest." 

Eve sits carefully on the bed, nearly missing the edge, and tries to relocate her voice. "...Okay." 

"When you asked if it was safe to come, I was a bit... caught in the moment." 

"...Meaning?" 

"Meaning... I don't actually know if anyone knows where I am. Chances are... maybe yes? I don't know if I'm being tracked. I don't know if you're being tracked. I'm trying to find out, but I can't guarantee your safety, which means—" 

"It's not up to you to keep me safe." 

"Yes, it is. I am the reason for everything that has happened to you." 

"Everything that's happened was my choice. Following you... over, and over, and fucking  _over_  again. I take responsibility for everything I've done, and I don't regret it." 

Villanelle sighs. "You say that now..." 

"Look, if you've changed your mind—" 

" _NO._ " It's so sharp and adamant that Eve holds her breath. "Fuck, I want you here, you have no idea. But I also want you  _alive_." 

"What makes me any safer here? It's not like I have an unlisted address, and what's the point of being  _alive_  if I'm not actually  _living_? I've spent all this time holding back, telling myself I'm not allowed to have, or want, or think, or do... and what has it gotten me? I'm done. I don't give a fuck about risk anymore." 

Energy fizzles in the air, crackling through the silence, Eve can feel it—rushing over her skin as she processes the sensation of her own raw nerve taking over. 

"You know, Eve," Villanelle says finally, "killing has turned you into kind of a badass." 

"Ugh, shut up." 

"Too soon?" 

"Always." 

"Sorry," she pouts, but Eve can hear the smile. "I didn't mean what I said that time, you know." 

"Mean what?" 

"When I said you were only interesting because of me. You’re the most interesting person I know. Besides me." 

Eve smiles pathetically at the wall, then bites her lip to rein it in.

"You too."

 

-

 

It changes, then. It all changes, like the next-to-last wall between them has been torn down. Eve isn't sure what the last wall is, how tall or indestructible, or when they'll hit it—but she suspects it'll hold up until they're face to face at least, and she can live with that.

“What are you thinking about?” Villanelle asks her on a Friday night, when Eve is sprawled across her living room sofa with a bowl of popcorn balanced on her belly. She can hear the  _pop_  of the TootsiePop Villanelle has been smacking on for the last twenty minutes (cherry, apparently), and imagines she is much the same: laid out over her cozy Alaskan sofa with a wool blanket tucked around her and Pakak asleep at her feet. Eve is a little drunk, just now entering the blissful, weightless state that easily dissolves her brain-to-mouth filter.

"Everyone who ever loved you is dead," she muses. 

“ _Wowww_ ,” Villanelle deadpans. “You really know how to charm a girl.” 

“Sorry, you asked!”

"Good thing you don’t love me then," Villanelle sighs, and before Eve's heart can plummet into her stomach, she rushes on. "We are all going to die at some point, Eve. The question is, how do you want to live?" 

"Ugh, stop being profound." 

She is answered by a gentle huff of acknowledgment. (Defiance?) 

"When my mother died, I cried," Villanelle says. "Not because I was sad but because I was happy that he couldn’t hurt her anymore." 

"That's... understandable." 

"Death is a gift. No more pain, no more suffering. No more  _boredom_." 

"If you really feel that way, why... why haven’t you ever..." 

"Why have I not killed myself?" 

"I... yeah." 

"I don’t know. I guess I am still too curious to see what comes next."

"I am, too,” Eve says after a long moment. "Look, don't... read into this or anything, but... I'm glad you're alive."

"You're such a romantic."

"I'm serious." 

Villanelle goes quiet, long enough for Eve to wonder if she’s drifted off, until— 

"I'm glad you're alive too, if you're fishing for compliments." 

"Oh, fuck off."

 

-

 

_Do you like classical music?_  Villanelle asks two weeks before Eve will be standing in front of her. 

_Sometimes,_  Eve replies.  _I’m more of an 80s girl._  

Villanelle responds with a selfie, seated at a rustic upright piano, offering a pretentiously disappointed face. Her shirt plunges open to a low triangle (because of course it does) with the top three buttons undone, treating Eve to a fine view of her collarbones. 

_You have a piano?_  Eve asks pointlessly. 

_It’s why I chose this place_

_You play?_

_Some_

_Me too_

_Really?_

_I'm Asian, what do you think? :)_

😂  _You took REAL lessons_

_Twelve grueling years..._

_You will have to play for me_

_Maybe, if you behave._

Eve stares at the words. They look wildly out of place on her side of the chat window, and it sends a wicked little thrill right through her core. 

Villanelle takes the bait, of course she does, responding with another selfie, nearly identical, only now she's unbuttoned the entire damn shirt, leaving a bare strip of skin all the way down her front. 

And she's biting her lip. 

_You suck_ , Eve responds simply. 

_If you ask nicely_ , she replies, and Eve dies a little. 

Instead of admitting this, she asks,  _Where did you learn to play?_

_My grandmother taught me. But I am not very good anymore_

_You're good at everything_  

_How would you know?_  😏 

_Wild guess._

_Go to sleep, you fucking tease,_ Villanelle orders, and Eve obeys.

 

-

 

"Why don't you have kids?" Villanelle asks one week before Eve will be smelling her perfume again. 

"Huh?" 

"I mean, I am not complaining. How shit would it be if you did?" 

"Oh my god, right?" 

"I was just curious. It is unusual. A woman your age, married... to a man... no kids?" 

"Oh. Um, Niko wanted them, in the beginning, but... I never did. I liked our life the way it was. Mostly, anyway. I liked all the parts I would've lost if I'd had a kid." 

"Fair enough, your turn."

"What was prison like?"

"Ugh, Eve, you are so  _morbid_." 

"What, ' _I was just curious_.'" 

Villanelle sighs. "As bad as you imagine. Probably worse." 

"Oh. I'm sorry." 

"What, you wanted to hear about the lesbian orgies?" 

"No!" 

"Someone has had a little too much  _Orange Is the New Black_." 

"I'm sorry, I—" 

"Don't be. It is over."

"Why did Konstantin choose you over Nadia?" 

"You've met us both. What do you think?"

"I think you'd do anything to get what you want." 

"Yes, but I was smarter _._ And I had an innocent face." 

"Your face is not even the slightest bit innocent." 

"It was back then! You're just used to me looking at you like I want to devour you." 

Eve chooses not to respond. 

"I also scored really high on the aptitude test." 

"There's an... aptitude test for assassins?"

"Something like that," Villanelle says vaguely. "He asked me what I would do if my first target was Nadia." 

"And?" 

"I told him I would do my job. Apparently Nadia gave a less impressive answer." 

Eve shouldn't be surprised, and really, she isn't. But sometimes it's still jarring. 

"You don't know what prison is like," Villanelle says quietly, reading her thoughts. "You would do anything to get out." 

"I understand." 

"You don't, but I don't expect you to." 

"Do you have... any boundaries? At all?" Eve asks. "Are there any lines you won't cross?" 

"I don't know. I haven't encountered any yet." 

"And if I was your target, for real? Would you do it?"

"That's not my job anymore." 

"But if it were. If it came to that." 

She's wanted to ask for a long time and has fully prepared herself for the answer, as painful as it is, but in reality, what she gets is miles off the mark. 

"I think I would find a new job," Villanelle says. 

It is this moment Eve decides her life is a twisted tangle of fuckery—and herself a willing participant—when she realizes that's the most romantic thing Villanelle has ever said to her.

 

-

 

It's an ungodly flight. 

Eve has too much else on her mind to notice (What should she wear? Why should she care? How is it she only owns one matching bra and panty set and what if it's all a ruse and Villanelle isn't there?), until she's settled into her seat and the captain announces the flight time. Which is, as previously noted, ungodly. 

She berates herself for her own nerves, for the fact that she turns down in-flight booze and pops breath mints instead, for being completely unable to distract herself no matter how many movies she starts and abandons on the seat-back screen in front of her. For darting into the first Alaskan airport bathroom she finds to check her makeup, her hair—which, until now, has been pinned up and out of the way. 

She reaches around, pries apart the clip and lets the curls fall, loose and billowy around her face. (Is it deja vu if you remember every second?)

Her trembling fingers manage a quick  _On my way_  in response to Villanelle's announcement of her whereabouts and a vague indication of her disguises (glasses, short dark wig)—the carousel number, the fast food landmarks on either side, too detailed to be anything but utterly, impossibly real and  _literal seconds_  from happening. 

She forces one foot in front of the other until she makes it to baggage claim. She spots the Burger King, then the Subway, and before she even sees, she  _feels_ —eyes already locked onto her, watching, waiting, calling. And then— 

Right there, a solid figure amidst the moving crowd, and the face she could never forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](https://youtu.be/ArByovsxZjY) oddly inspired the airport scene. In my mind, their eyes first meet at 2:54. (Yes, I would rather be making films, what gave it away.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I wasn't sure you'd come."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, this took a lot longer than planned. I am so sorry. (I hope it's worth it?)
> 
> Today's hot mess brought to you by a tangy Sonoma Chardonnay and your lovely, encouraging comments that kept me motivated. Bless you.

**_(2007)_ **

_She will never be a cliche, she makes sure of that._

_Her first experience will not be a traumatic, pleasureless tryst with some greedy, smelly hard-on in the back of a car after a school dance—or worse. It will not, not, not be a redundancy of too many women who've all deserved better. Determined to rise above, Oksana sets her sights on the impossible, and wins._

_Tatiana is madly infatuated and deeply religious (when not prone to violent fits—although God is awfully violent himself, Oksana muses, so perhaps she is only doing his bidding), and Oksana learns she is blissfully powerless against a woman who tries not to see her as a deity and fails—demon or savior, it all depends._

_"I don't know what I'm doing," Tatiana tells her._

_"Neither do I," Oksana says, then licks her clumsily until she comes, over and over, past the colorless break of winter dawn, cold and desolate beyond their sweat-slicked bodies and the thick metal bars of their small, solitary window._

_Tatiana cries in her arms but never lets go. "God will punish us," she laments, tears drenching Oksana's bare shoulder._

_"Why would God punish love?"_

_"You can't love me."_

_"But I do," Oksana pleads. "I do, I do."_

_-_

It's cute—the curated disguise dripping with vintage charm—the wig and the glasses and the off-shoulder jumper scattered with multicolored stars, cut-off jeans miniskirt, a massive pair of hiking boots. It's really fucking cute, and that's distracting, and that's  _good._ Distracting is good. Eve's first thought is that she looks like she's about to get whisked off by Indiana Jones, which is especially ridiculous because Eve cannot begin to imagine Villanelle being "whisked off" by anyone, let alone some smug womanizer. 

And that's the image she's left with as she steps toward the arrivals line: Villanelle making out with Harrison Ford. Fantastic.

Somehow the space between them shrinks to a place where breath and blinking alike have crept into her experience, twenty-four inches away and then less, and less, and she can smell Villanelle's perfume—the one thing that hasn't changed. 

"I wasn't sure you'd come." 

Her voice is a sacred fucking elixir to Eve's ears, something richly grounding and validating while Eve is convinced she's floating. The corners of Villanelle's lips are twitching upward but holding back, like she's afraid to let herself smile. 

"I wasn't sure you'd be here," says Eve. 

"I am here." 

"You are." 

"You got a new coat." 

Eve did. It is a wine-red wool peacoat, and it is damn sexy. As coats go. 

"I did." 

And then, only then, does Villanelle smile. "I like it." 

"I like your... eighties." 

The smile widens, and at last, rediscovering her voluntary nervous system, Eve smiles back as Villanelle adjusts her glasses with flair. "Thank you." 

Standing there like idiots, straddling the tightrope between awkward and flawless, they stare and stare. Everyone else hurries by with their rolling carry-ons and squeaky wheels, past them to their families. The sound of reunions, nervous laughter, the shuffle of outerwear as hugs are exchanged and introductions are made, and Eve sees, hears, feels none of it—there is only Villanelle's body drawing closer until she's wrapped Eve in a tight, long-limbed hug. 

Eve reciprocates instinctively, tucking her face boldly into Villanelle's neck, but it's over in a breath. Villanelle's body is gone, there's a cool rush of air in its place, and for a second Eve thinks she's fucked it all up, sent all the wrong signals—but Villanelle is still smiling in front of her. More, even. Bigger, brighter, fiery,  _glowing_. 

"Come," she says, jerking her head toward the nearest exit and wrapping her fingers around the handle of Eve's suitcase. "I'm close." 

The smirk isn't lost on Eve for a second, not that it matters a whit because in this moment, this madness, she'd follow her anywhere.

 

-

 

The pickup truck is cherry red, spattered with the snowy sludge of a dying Alaskan winter, and the interior smells so distinctly of Villanelle that Eve is fully content to spend the entire visit in the front seat.

"Here," Villanelle offers, leaning over her to open the passenger air vents and direct them toward Eve. The movement practically lays her torso over Eve's lap for the briefest moment, and that's fine, it's totally fine. 

Villanelle turns, smiles at her as she shifts into first gear. "Ready?" 

Eve smiles back. She is not remotely ready. 

"How was your flight?" Villanelle asks when they coast onto the highway. 

"It—it was fine." 

"Really?" 

"Sure." 

"Really?"

"No. I—I couldn’t think straight." 

Villanelle snorts. 

"Oh shut up." 

"Want some music?" 

"What, you bored of me already?"

"Not for me, for you and your embarrassing nerves." 

"I don’t have  _nerves_!" 

Villanelle smiles, rolling her eyes. "I would give you a drink, but that isn't  _legal_." 

The word is punctuated with childish resentment and a flourish of air quotes. Eve smiles, and the first handful of nerves begins to evaporate—like she's back in her bedroom, phone pressed to her ear, a forgotten Netflix summary darkened on her laptop as Villanelle talks her to sleep—only now, she doesn't have to hang up. 

Villanelle unlocks her phone one-handed in a blur of long, deft fingers, and drops an iTunes screen onto Eve's thigh. It is wildly intimate, operating someone else's phone—especially someone whose entire livelihood, psyche, and self are founded upon secrecy. Eve relishes the gift, browsing slowly, committing playlist after playlist to memory, everything from Rammstein to Tchaikovsky to the Indigo Girls. She settles safely on Radiohead at low volume. 

"Don't think I didn't see you scrolling through ABBA." 

"Dude, it's  _your_  music." 

" _Can you hear the drums, Fernando_?" 

Eve laughs, and laughs, but Villanelle only gets louder, so Eve jumps in to harmonize and forgets the last forty years of her life. 

 

-

 

The ostentatious Parisian flat Eve has tried for a year to forget feels so much further than an ocean and continent away—lost in the fabric of space-time, some alternate universe fresh from Doctor Who. There is no trace of it in the oversized A-frame log cottage that sprinkles into view between skyscraper pine trees lining the winding S-curve of a pine needle-coated earth driveway. Just beyond its edge, an expanse of deep navy water sparkles at the feet of blackened, snow-flocked mountains that climb into the dusting of clouds above. 

"Holy shit," Eve must say, because Villanelle responds, "I know, right?"

Eve sits stupidly in her seat, soaking in the sight long enough for Villanelle to circle the car and open her door. Only then does she hear the distant echo of a dog barking and remember to get out of the damn car. 

"He is starting shit already," Villanelle sighs, fumbling for her key. "Don't fall for it." 

Villanelle has scarcely offered to take Eve's coat before Pakak greets them with manic enthusiasm, paws to their chests, not at all flustered by Eve's presence. There is a fair bit of Russian shouting and tossing of treats in his direction before he settles, and Eve quells her remaining nerves by crouching to pet him. In a nearby corner, she spots an expensive-looking dog bed and more toys than she remembers owning in her entire childhood, and files it away for later teasing. 

"You are so precious," she tells him between strokes of his dense, fluffy white coating. "Aren't you? Do you know your mommy is a crazy assassin? Did you know that?" 

"I am not his mother, I am his unwilling guardian," Villanelle huffs indignantly, flouncing around the kitchen for drinkware and a bottle.

"Your mommy loves you so much, doesn't she?" 

"I do not, he is a bucket of turds.'

"You are not," Eve assures him, snagging a treat from the open bag and stroking his head as he vacuums it into his eager mouth. "You are the very best boy." 

"Is he?" Villanelle challenges, presenting Eve with a flute of bubbling champagne after tossing her wig and glasses aside. "Pakak, would you like to show our guest what you did to the carpet?" 

Eve accepts her glass with a  _thank you_ and gets to her feet, following Villanelle's gaze to the dining nook framed by full-length bay windows overlooking the lake. Beneath the table, the fringe of a fluffy gray rug lays in ruins across an entire side. 

Eve laughs. "Takes after you." 

"Are you calling me a carpet muncher?!" 

Eve chokes on her first sip. "I meant you're destructive, you fucking teenager." 

"And you are greedy, we haven't even toasted."

"Oh shit, I'm sorry." 

Villanelle smirks, otherwise motionless as she leans her hip against the earthy slate countertop with a fizzy flute extended in Eve's direction. 

"Um. Are we supposed to be toasting to something? Like. New beginnings or... possibilities or some shit?" 

Villanelle makes a face. "That is revolting, I should send you home." 

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to toast!" 

Villanelle sighs in defeat and contemplates for a moment. "To your amazing hair, which I have missed dearly." 

Eve feels her cheeks fire up in response, followed quickly by her heartbeat, but she steels her face. "I can't toast to my own hair." 

"Too late," Villanelle smiles, and clinks her glass against Eve's. 

Eve rolls her eyes and chugs hungrily until it's gone. Villanelle follows suit, albeit less clumsily, and refills their glasses without a word. They sip less desperately this time as Eve lets the warm, airy buzz begin to spread through her blood. She takes a few steps toward the living room, eyeing the stacked stone mantel that stretches to the highest edge of the vaulted beam ceiling opposite a squashy set of sofa and chairs, interspersed with warm teak end tables in half-moon formation.

"It's so beautiful," Eve says. 

"Thank you, but I cannot take much credit. The landlord is very old and very gay." 

"Like you're not?" 

"How rude, I am only twenty-eight." 

Eve snorts. "Asshole." 

"Come on, I'll show you your room." 

Villanelle deposits her glass on the mantel shelf and Eve follows suit, climbing behind her up a split, open-tread staircase hugging a corner of windows, beyond which Eve can spot a vibrant palette of sky easing toward sunset. 

"I am at the end," Villanelle says, taking a few steps down the L-shaped strip of hall overlooking the space below. "And you are here." 

She pushes a heavy wooden door in front of them, leading them into a bright, cozy bedroom boasting the same view from the staircase. A four-poster king dominates the center, topped with a white eyelet spread and matching pillows, while a soft armchair and dresser fill opposite corners. 

“It is the better room, I think—clear view of the lake," Villanelle says, tugging back a corner of sheer curtain from the glass panes. "I saved it for you... just in case.” 

She smiles, meeting Eve's eyes, and Eve stares as awkwardly as humanly possible. 

“Um, but there is only one bathroom, so we’ll have to—“ 

Eve lunges forward and drinks in the taste—champagne, a hint of salt, maybe the trail mix she’d spotted on the counter, along with something dark and agonizingly sweet—before she’s even registered that they're kissing. 

No— _she’s_  kissing. Fucking hell. 

But Villanelle's shock wears off as quick as it came, and now there is an impossibly soft and insistent mouth working against Eve's as Villanelle kisses back with all the ferocity Eve had ever imagined—and oh, how she had imagined, and it’s good, it is  _so very good_ , too good that Eve is sure nothing could possibly top it, until Villanelle's fingers slip into her hair, tangling and tugging without mercy. It is only then that Eve realizes she's stretched onto her tiptoes, sealing their bodies flush until she can feel every muscle beneath the traitorous fabric that's keeping her from Villanelle's skin.

They stop for a moment, a reality check—sparing just enough space for eye contact. Eve can only dream she doesn't look as wrecked and thoroughly snogged as Villanelle does, but in all fairness, she's probably much worse. 

Villanelle searches her face with wide eyes and says hoarsely, "You have a thing for bathrooms too?” 

Eve blinks. “What?” 

“Nothing,” Villanelle says, and crashes their mouths back together.

Eve doesn't even notice she's trying to climb Villanelle like a tree until she feels a strong pair of hands wrap around her ass, and her feet have left the ground, coming quickly to wrap around Villanelle’s waist. They're moving somewhere, backwards, and Eve is landing flat on the bed with a springy bounce. Villanelle never breaks contact between their bodies, never allows even a breath of air between them, and Eve is floating. It is exhilaratingly new, the press of breasts against her own in place of a flat, solid plane; the velvet of smooth skin where she’d known only the sandpapery scratch of bristles; gentle curves in place of hard angles, and the sweet, sweet scents of another woman’s body. 

Villanelle offers pause enough to stare down at her a moment, smiling triumphantly as Eve grinds her hips upward. Villanelle pulls herself up to straddle Eve’s waist and tug impatiently at the hem of her shirt, and Eve freezes in revelation. 

“I should—shower first, or something—" 

Villanelle shakes her head, tightening her knees around Eve’s waist like she’s afraid of losing her all over again.

“You're fine,” she says breathlessly. 

“But I’m—“ 

“You're perfect,” Villanelle counters, pushing at Eve’s shirt until Eve relents with a raise of her arms. 

The shirt is gone, then the bra—but Villanelle, impatient as ever, can spare only seconds to look, glassy-eyed, before she drops back down, peppering Eve’s body with messy, biting, suckling kisses, coaxing a trail of red patches from her chest down to her navel as her hands explore inch by reckless inch. “You’re gorgeous,” she mumbles into heated skin, popping the button on Eve’s jeans and hooking her fingers beneath the denim. “You feel incredible...” 

Eve  _does_  feel incredible, at least from her own vantage point, but that’s all down to Villanelle, who has managed to rid Eve of her jeans and is burying her face between Eve’s thighs. Eve makes an indelicate noise followed by a handful of sounds that aren’t even close to words, prompting a curious eye from below. 

Villanelle smiles wickedly. “I bet you are loud." 

“You’ll never find out if you keep talking.” 

An eyebrow shoots up. “Look at you, getting sassy.” 

“Get your clothes off,” Eve demands, pushing herself up as much as her powerless position allows and shoving clumsily at Villanelle’s jumper. 

“If you insist,” Villanelle says sweetly, and obliges, shimmying out of top and bottom with far too much grace. She’d stealthily rid herself of socks somewhere along the way, a skill Eve couldn’t hope to master. 

Eve stares, and stares, as every cell in her body dies just a little. Villanelle’s jet-black bra with sparkling crystal accents and matching panties are stunning, to be certain, but it could be a strip of burlap and Eve would still be mesmerized. The woman is, for lack of a superior term, flawless. 

“Wow,” Eve says brilliantly. 

Villanelle grins and crawls back up her body. 

“No no, hang on, I just wanna—” Eve pleads, pushing herself back for a better view. “...Wow.” 

But that is enough not-touching, and Eve pulls her forward without a word. 

“I don’t—“ she realizes aloud between kisses. “I don’t know how...”

“It’s okay, I’ll teach you.”

Eve closes her eyes in submission. “God, I love the way you smell.”

 Villanelle laughs. “You are so gay.” 

“No I’m not!” 

“What's wrong with being gay?!” 

“Nothing! I’m just—shut  _up_!” 

Villanelle does, kissing her silent, and Eve, fighting both desperation and dignity, begrudgingly allows herself to be flipped.

 

-

 

"Oh my god, I've wasted so many years on men." 

Villanelle laughs raucously into her tummy in response, which is very impolite. How dare she make fun when she’s the one who mumbles nonsense in French when she comes, as Eve is about to find out.

 

-

 

Sunset has melted into moonlight by the time their bodies come to a halt, reduced to lazy heaps as they trace idle strokes across arms, shoulders, collarbones. Villanelle's fingertip catches on the raised white skin of Eve's scar, and her face scrunches up in guilt. 

“Sorry about that.”

Eve shrugs, tapping gently at the similar mark above Villanelle's hip. "Me too." 

Villanelle shrugs. "You just wanted to be inside me. Can't blame you for that." 

Eve pinches her hip, then drops a kiss to the spot. 

"I thought I'd killed you, you know," she says. "I couldn't... think. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I thought I was losing my mind." 

“Why did you do it?” 

“Because you thought I couldn’t.” 

“Why do you care about impressing me?” 

“Me?! You’ve been...  _courting_  me since day one.” 

“Courting?” 

“Yes!” 

“You are so old. No one says that. And it is rude to reduce my seduction to courtship.” 

Eve raises an eyebrow. 

Villanelle watches her for a long time, then says, "I’m sorry I killed your friend Bill.” 

Not exactly pillow talk, but Eve never expected conventional. She looks away and shrugs. 

“You don't have to say that, but thanks.” 

“Eve... I am." Villanelle stares, waiting until Eve turns back to her. "No one had figured me out before. I panicked." 

Eve doesn't say anything, and Villanelle sighs. 

“I’m not sorry about the homewrecking schoolteacher though.” 

Eve laughs. “Please. I wrecked my own home.” 

“And mine! I miss Paris.” 

“Totally worth it. Felt amazing.” 

“Better than this?” 

Her hand slips lower, but before Eve can react, Villanelle's eyes widen comically. 

"I am a terrible hostess." 

"Um, going by number of orgasms in two hours, I'd say you're a pretty damn good hostess." 

"I have not fed you. Are you hungry? 

"Actually—yeah. Starving." 

"I was going to make you dinner first but you jumped me." 

"I am so very sorry." 

"You should be, I am an excellent cook." 

"Ooh, are you making that bread and cheese thing?" 

"Tonight? No," Villanelle wrinkles her nose as she fumbles for her sweatshirt and underwear, tugging them on with purpose. "Khachapuri is not romantic. This was supposed to be your seduction dinner." 

"So what is romantic?" 

Villanelle smiles. " _Italiano._ " 

She bolts from the room and tumbles downstairs, leaving Eve to gather as many items of clothing as she can find to make herself decent. Villanelle is flying around the kitchen when she arrives, throwing open cabinets and drawers.

"Can I help?" Eve offers. 

"No, you can open some wine and get drunk like a good date." 

Eve selects a bottle from the rack in the corner of the kitchen. "Where's the, um..." 

"Pantry, over there." Villanelle jerks her head toward a door. Eve tugs on it, but it's locked. "Not that one. Next one." 

Sure enough, there's a second door a few feet away, but Eve is intrigued. 

"What's in there?" 

"My office." 

Eve laughs. "...Wait, really? Do you have like a... paper shredder and a stapler?" 

"Actually, yes."

"Can I see?"

"No." Villanelle looks up from her sizzling pan, softening with a smile. "That is private." 

"Oh. Okay." 

"Don't be offended." 

"I'm not!" 

"Mm." 

"I have no interest in making fun of your  _Perseverance_  poster, or your kitten calendar, or your World's Best Art Thief mug..." 

Villanelle's mouth twitches, but she resists. "Clever." 

"I bet you've got your computer password on a Post-It stuck to your monitor."

"What was the PIN to your phone again?" 

"Fuck you." 

"Hmm, I believe I did." 

She snaps a dish towel at Eve's hip, and Eve shrieks with laughter, leaping out of the way, but not fast enough. Villanelle's stupid long arms catch hold of her, pulling her close and landing a bite right on her neck. It'll leave a mark, Eve knows, but her body is already melting into the warm, lithe shape behind her, any protest lost in her throat as she wonders why nothing has ever felt as right as this terribly wrong mess.

 

-

 

Eve wakes up alone, which feels exceptionally normal, until she realizes she isn't supposed to be alone. 

There's a moment of panic until the sound of humming wafts up from downstairs, followed by the sweet, syrupy smell of maple and cinnamon. Eve follows quietly, loath to disturb any rare glimpses of Villanelle in her unobserved state. 

" _I can have it all, now I'm dancin' fooor my life_." 

Villanelle's hips pop back and forth to her own rhythm, a delicious sight beneath the too-short dressing gown. Most of her hair balances messily atop her head with a toothy clip, a few strands having escaped to curtain the back of her neck. Eve wants to brush them aside, kiss the downy soft skin beneath. 

"Jennifer Beals is so hot." 

Villanelle spins around. "Shit, you're awake. But yes." 

"Should I be asleep?" 

"I was going to bring you breakfast."

Eve smiles, steps forward and pins Villanelle to the counter with her hips, leaning in to whisper, "I'd rather eat you." 

Something clatters behind them, falling from Villanelle's grip. Her hands find Eve's waist and squeeze tightly. "Get in line." 

Eve hums in response and pulls her down for a kiss. "Breakfast can wait." 

"Apparently you can't." 

Eve smiles. "I'm filthy." 

"Yes, you are." 

"No," she laughs. "I  _really_  have to shower." 

"Oh. Okay." 

"Care to join me?" 

"Are you going to wash away my sins?" 

"Not even the good lord himself could scrub you clean." 

Villanelle lunges to bite her neck and Eve laughs until it echoes, a flutter of notes, spreading to the corners of the sun-toasted cabin.

 

-

 

There is something raw in the exposure of it, the shared experience of cleansing. Villanelle asks to wash Eve's hair, and Eve returns the favor. She never had sisters, never enjoyed the sort of friendships that involved the dying of hair in a bathroom sink—and in an odd little renaissance moment of clarity, she realizes this is the first time she's lavished any shred of attention on another woman's hair. It's  _fun_ , for starters, and luxuriously silky, the honey blonde darkening to gleaming caramel under the stream as it clings to her fingers. She imagines it has been a long time coming for Villanelle too, the chance to run her hands so thoroughly through Eve's hot mess of a mane, a fascination Eve will never understand but appreciates nonetheless. 

It is a different class of intimacy, here under the steam, shrouded by the white noise of falling water—nothing to hide, nothing to prove, just the wet press of lips against skin and nothing else in the world.

 

-

 

They make it to breakfast.

They make it  _past_  breakfast, as far as the countertop, where Eve sits spread out in front of the sink with Villanelle bent between her legs. 

(She was right. Eve is  _loud_.) 

They make it out of the house, fully clothed, thank you very much, on a three-mile hike around the lake with Pakak as their guide. 

They make it across the lake via canoe, down the narrowest stream, catching sight of a baby black bear that's so fat and cute it reduces Eve to incoherent squeaks, which promptly scares it out of sight. 

They make it to dinner, which by popular vote consists of cookies and crisps in front of  _Twilight_ , which Villanelle has deliberately and contentedly never seen, but upon which Eve insists solely for its dreadful mockability and drinking game potential (once every time KStew makes incoherent breath-noises, and twice every time Anna Kendrick appears—on whom, it turns out, they've both regrettably crushed). 

They make it to bed, but it's not the same as the first—slower, deeper, though with no less edge. 

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Villanelle asks when Eve is cradled against her side, head tilted upward. 

"I'm not. Like what?" 

"Like you've never seen me before." 

Eve shrugs. "You just. Look so... human." 

"I am human." 

"Yeah. But." 

"You mean I fit your stereotype of what a human should be?" 

"No, that's not—" Eve pulls herself up on her side, shaping a hand to Villanelle's cheek. "I don't..." 

"Do you see me as a monster?" 

It shouldn't catch Eve off guard. Villanelle is nothing if not brazenly frank, and if only for that, Eve owes her the truth. 

"No," she says quietly. It feels as honest as anything could. "I really don't."

She leans in, fitting an emphatic, consuming kiss to Villanelle's lips, and there are no more words.

 

-

 

Her head swirls in the darkness. For a moment, she's not sure whether she's dreaming or awake. 

"Eve." 

"Mmhm." 

" _Eve_." 

Eve's eyes squint open, tracing the outline of the face above her. Villanelle is wide awake with dark eyes and a crease in her forehead, fully clothed and sizzling with energy. 

"Hi," Eve croaks.

"Hello, gorgeous," Villanelle replies, softening for a moment. "Listen to me. I have to go." 

"What?" 

"I have to go out for awhile." 

Eve's eyes open fully, blinking into comprehension. "What?" 

"I have to go do something." 

"What do you mean?" Eve pushes herself up on her elbows. "Do what?" 

"Don't ask questions, okay?" Villanelle kisses her quickly. "There's something I need to take care of."

"Villanelle—" 

"You stay here, okay? I'll be back before you're awake." 

"Where are you doing, what—" 

"Eve." Her eyes plead, desperate and earnest. "I will be back.  _Ne t'inquiète pas_." 

"Mais pourquoi?" Eve replies effortlessly, wondering vaguely how deeply buried her French vocab must have been in her subconscious. 

Villanelle smiles. "Go back to sleep." 

Still yet to reach full consciousness, Eve takes a moment to evaluate, but it's a moment too long. Villanelle has padded quietly down the stairs; Eve registers the soft click of the front door and the spirited kick of the truck's ignition before her body's even considered a launch into action, and the house falls deadly silent.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I have loved two women, and both of them have told me I don't know what love is."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay... <3

**_(2011)_ ** 

_The politsiya have a dozen hands, a hundred fingers—each a bruising vice around Oksana's every limb, squeezing down to the bone. A suppressed, unimportant part of her brain knows if she keeps flailing, keeps struggling, she's going to break something, and that will make her weak, prevent her from fighting, fixing, winning._

_But her body, predictably, doesn't listen._

_Anna's face is getting smaller. Her white-knuckled hands grip the door frame with nails digging crescents into the stripped, aging wood. Oksana's eyes fixate on the stupidest things: the chipping, once-white paint, the crease in Anna's forehead, the wrinkle in her dull pencil-skirt, one of the unflattering ones Oksana always hated and tried to rectify with shower after shower of expensive (stolen) finery—clothes that would do her beauty justice, that would make her see herself the way Oksana does._

_The ugly, uneven swell of tears in Anna's eyes doesn't matter right now; she just doesn't understand. She will, give her time, she will, it's so simple..._

_"I did it for us!" Oksana screams again, kicking wildly at the officers struggling to contain her wriggling legs, jean-clad eels in their pitiful grips. It's comical, on the surface._ _"It was for us, don't you understand? I love you! I love you, I love you..."_

_Anna shakes her head slowly, the first real acknowledgment beyond the catatonia that had set in when initial outrage crumbled to shock._ _"You will never know what love is."_

_Stupid straight women—as if any of them do?_

_Oksana swallows her anger. "But you're mine. You're mine and I'm yours."_

_"I don't want you," Anna says. "And I will never be yours."_

_Oksana's body releases, sinks into boneless compliance—lost and limp in time and space. The face is moving farther away, faster now, as she allows the officers to drag her away with some reclaimed measure of coordinated efficiency. Soon, it distorts into nothing more than a foggy phantom beyond the bubble of tears she refuses to let fall._  

 

-

 

Compartmentalization is a skill, one Eve has unwittingly honed to sharp perfection. 

Sleep is off the table, now, not that she'd even try. In the blackest hours inching toward dawn, she finds it surprisingly easy to make believe an entirely new premise—a wintry getaway nested in the rejuvenating, snow-capped heart of nature; the stay-at-home half in a secluded couples' quiet existence. Alone in a cozy, remote cabin could be as beautiful as she imagines it to be. 

She pads downstairs, stirs up a fire and makes herself a pot of coffee. She sits with Pakak on the sofa, his huge fluffy head on her lap, and convinces herself the seconds aren't ticking backwards. 

Villanelle's phone is still on the kitchen counter; she must have taken another. A _work phone_ , Eve rolls her eyes, like she got it from the office admin. 

It's fine. Eve is fine, absolutely not tapping her fingers restlessly against poor Pakak's skull nor eyeing the half-empty bottle of Belvedere by the sink. It's gotta be almost five o'clock in London, after all—

Pakak leaps into awareness a full beat ahead of her, bounds off the sofa toward the door with his nails tap-scraping against the hardwood. The winding-down hum of a weary engine, tires crackling over pine needles and pebbles. Eve stands bolt upright in the middle of the room until the door unlatches and swings open.

It's a rough imitation of the woman she fell asleep with hours before: hair frazzled, skin and clothes stained with dirt and what Eve hates to recognize as blood. 

"Not mine," Villanelle says, reading Eve's mind and holding her hands up as a peace offering. "It's not mine."

Eve tumbles forward to lift the messenger bag from Villanelle's shoulder and help her out of her coat. Villanelle lets her, in silence.

"I'm fine," Villanelle says, calming Eve's scattered, restless hands with a squeeze. "I'm fine."

"What happened?" 

Villanelle shrugs, setting her keys and phone on the nearest surface. "Someone was sent to kill me. I dealt with it." 

Eve stares, unconvinced. 

"Don't worry. He's the only one who had any idea where I was."

"Who? How did he know? Where were you, what were you—" 

"Eve." 

"This is my fault, isn't it?" 

"No," Villanelle says firmly. "No, it's mine. Don't worry. I have people looking out for me." 

"Who? How do you know you can trust them? What if—" 

"Eve." 

"You told me your job was—" 

"This wasn't my job." 

"Then what was it?!" 

Villanelle sighs, dramatic, half stalling and half guilt. After everything, Eve can easily calculate the proportions. 

"I have been honest with you," Villanelle says. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you everything. You will have to accept that. I'm sorry." 

Like she has a choice. 

"Are we safe? Are _you_ safe?" Eve asks. 

Villanelle looks her in the eye, brutally exposed. "I don't know." 

Well fuck, Eve wanted honesty. 

"If you want to leave, I understand." 

"I'm not going anywhere. I knew the risks. But if you just _tell_  me, maybe I could—" 

"Stop." Villanelle fixes her with a look that warns, bites, just enough to fend her off. "I know you hate being left out but I'm not going to talk about it. The less you know, the safer you are." 

Eve braces herself for a stare-off, but exhaustion creeps over any leftover resolve on either side.

"Can you accept that, or not?" 

Eve can't, probably, but maybe she can pretend.

"I should go."

"What?" 

Eve flails. "Wh—what if they're tracking me? What if I led them to you—" 

"You didn't. It has nothing to do with you. I promise. No offense, but you are easy to kill. If they wanted you dead, you'd be dead." 

Fantastic. 

Villanelle must sense this doesn't quite fulfill the intent of comfort, so she takes Eve's face in her hands and kisses her. She tastes like Eve remembers just hours before but with a palette of new layers—dark, rough, both ghostly familiar and patently foreign. 

Villanelle's phone buzzes—her first phone, her "real" phone, at least from Eve's vantage point—then again, and again, until Villanelle growls deep in her throat and pulls herself away to pick it up. Her brow furrows briefly, then the shadow of a smile spreads over her lips, just long enough to be caught. 

She looks up at Eve. "Do you want to meet my family?" 

Eve blinks. "Your what?" 

"Tulok wants to borrow my snow blower." 

"Who?" 

"Tulok, a few kilometers down. Him and his disproportionately attractive wife and their weird little child who kind of looks like a beaver but is actually pretty smart." 

Eve blinks. "You've... befriended your neighbors?" 

Villanelle shrugs. "They taught me how to ice fish, I was charming, so they sort of adopted me a little bit." 

"Were you threatening their lives when they made this decision?" 

"Excuse me, I am very lovable. Besides, you have to make friends here. What if there is a snow storm and all the shops are closed but you _really_  need some vodka?" 

"Um, knowing you, break in and steal it?" 

Villanelle looks scandalized. "That would be _rude_." 

Eve finds a smile. "I'd love to meet them." 

 

- 

 

With unprecedented patience, Villanelle allows herself to be fussed over, cleaned up and changed, and Eve doesn't ask. She uncovers a fresh scatter of bruises along Villanelle's forearm, an odd scrape across her knee, and doesn't ask. Instead, she settles for satisfied that Villanelle isn't fighting her care. Satisfied enough, for now. 

"You are thinking too loudly," Villanelle groans. 

"Bite me." 

Villanelle tries, but Eve ducks and throws a t-shirt at her instead. Villanelle can dress her damn self if she insists on being an ungrateful wretch, and that's about as much thought as Eve can put into it before the doorbell rings. 

Eve's eyes widen. "They're here _now?_ "

"Mm," Villanelle affirms, tugging the shirt over her head. "By the way, my name is Katya. I left my shitty husband two years ago and I am a wildlife photographer." 

Eve flails. "For what publication?" 

"What?" 

"How do you make money? Who buys your photos?"

"I don't know!" 

"Well that's not a very strong story, is it?" 

"Jeez, _fine_ , National Geographic." 

"Wow, you must be good." 

Villanelle smirks, flexes her fingers around the bedroom door and gives it a squeeze. "I am the best." 

Eve strays behind, watching this wild woman tumble down the stairs and fling open her front door like she wasn't halfway to murdered an hour ago. A short, Santa-shaped man bounces into the cabin, followed, as promised, by a beautifully mismatched wife and beaver spawn, all hugging Villanelle in turn. The eerie part is, she hugs them back. 

Eve is content to stay in the background and wave a polite hello, stay comfortably out of their unit, but Villanelle spins around. 

"Where is my beautiful girlfriend?" 

"Is this her?!" Tulok demands with bulging eyes. 

"Don't be an ass," his wife chides, stepping forward to shake Eve's hand. "I'm Kirima, it's lovely to meet you." 

"And you," Eve replies with a smile.

"You don't need a snow blower, do you?" Villanelle challenges. 

"Of course not!" Tulok confesses with spread arms, drawing Eve into a bear hug. "We had to make sure she wasn't a serial killer!" 

Villanelle's eyes twinkle in Eve's direction. "Are you a serial killer, Eve?" 

Eve raises an eyebrow. "Not yet." 

Tulok laughs heartily, but Villanelle keeps her eyes on Eve, looking closer to aroused than anything else. 

Eve busies herself with bar-tending as they dissolve into overlapping conversation. It's all sorts of strange, observing Villanelle in this new role, these otherworldly circumstances, this strange marriage of authenticity and fabrication, never certain which is dominant. Is this another act, another persona—or still another side of her Eve hadn't uncovered? Warm and laughing—was Villanelle like this as a child? Did it ever have the chance to blossom before everything went south? 

And if any of it's real—why has she kept it hidden from Eve? 

 

- 

 

Eve is still half drunk when she blinks awake mid-afternoon from their unscheduled nap, an inevitable tangled-limb collapse on the rug in front of the fire the moment they were alone. Villanelle is propped against the sofa, tapping furiously on her laptop, while Eve struggles to pull herself from the dream already racing out of consciousness, slipping from the grips of her mind, the last grains of sand through the center of an hourglass. She remembers fear and blood, a lot of it, and suddenly Villanelle was gone. Gone in a sickening, permanent sort of way. 

Real-life Villanelle is very much present—wearing _glasses_ , incidentally, a visual Eve quickly files away for later masturbation material—and peeks briefly at Eve over her screen. "Good evening, sunshine." 

Eve isn't thinking when she crawls up on her knees, snaps the laptop shut, lays it aside and crawls into Villanelle's lap, snogging her with determined ferocity that meets its match. They dissolve naturally into lazy, sloppy, searching kisses, hands roaming beneath fabric over sleep-warmed skin, for a long long time before Eve forms a thought. 

"You're not... the same," she says, tucking a strand of hair behind Villanelle's ear. 

"The same as what?"

"As you were. Before, when we first met." 

"How so?" 

Eve shrugs, climbing off her and propping herself against Villanelle's soft, heated side. "You seem... different, now that you're away from... all of that. Well. Most of that." 

"I'm not. Don't get your hopes up." 

Eve looks hard at her, and Villanelle softens. 

"Eve..." 

"No, it's okay. It was just an... observation."

Villanelle sighs, and for a long time there is nothing. 

"I have loved two women," she says finally. "And both of them have told me I don't know what love is." 

Eve looks up, and Villanelle drags her eyes from the crackling fire to meet her. 

"I am trying," she says. "If anything is different, maybe it is that." 

 

- 

 

They sleep, again, until the sun falls, and with it, a fresh scattering of snowflakes. Out here, stars sparkle by the dozen, unlike anything Eve has seen in the smog-coated heavens of London. Together, they scrape together some semblance of dinner and brew up a pair of steaming mugs brimming with hot chocolate, cupped in their hands as they lean over the upstairs balcony to watch snowflakes dissolve into the foaming heaps of whipped cream. Behind them, in the bedroom, lies a pile of clothes Villanelle has gathered in preparation to pack for her next job, day after tomorrow. The day Eve returns home. 

She catches Eve stealing a glance at it and frowns. "You're weirded out, aren't you?" 

She looks nervous. She thinks this is going to scare Eve away, the crash back to reality, remembering that real life looms on the horizon beyond their carefully crafted bubble of intimacy and alcohol. 

"You know what?" Eve says with a smile. "I'm actually not."

Villanelle looks down over the forest and beyond, across the lake, and Eve is certain she catches the shadow of a smile. 

"I know I told you you don't understand love," Eve says suddenly, amplified by the insulated silence of snowfall. 

When she looks up, Villanelle is watching her with wide eyes, her fingertips exposed beneath the too-long sleeves of an oversized sweater and gripping tight around her mug. 

"Honestly," Eve sighs, "I don't think I understand it either." 

"Good thing we're not saying it then." 

"Good thing." 

They listen for a long time to the sounds that breach the night—the whisper of snow piling upon branches, then sifting to the ground as a stray creature interrupts the balance. The cry of a wolf, an owl, and the occasional touch of wind rousing the sleeping surface of the water. 

"I do, though," Villanelle says quietly, and Eve's breath stops. 

 "I do, too." 

 

-

 

Eve isn't sure Villanelle has really slept at all throughout the day's on-again, off-again dozing, and isn't surprised to find her dead gone and snoring after the fifth orgasm Eve was privileged to coax from her willing body. Eve cherishes the chance to watch her sleep, small and vulnerable. Powerless, if it were anyone else, but even at rest, she's sure Villanelle could take a life with a single, unconscious blow.

She smiles and tiptoes downstairs to let Pakak out for his nighttime relief. 

The cabin is so quiet, so lifeless at this hour that Eve almost fails to notice the slight angle of Villanelle's office door—as if someone swung it shut behind them but it didn't quite make it. 

Sure enough, the door is open to its edge, cracked just at the door frame, and there's no contest. Eve's raging curiosity wins by default. 

Her fingers crawl to the light switch and press upward, and her throat plummets to her stomach. 

The wood-paneled walls are covered. That hits her first. Telephoto candids of at least a dozen different men, some of whom spark familiarity, some entirely new—several marred by a large red X. A white board spans the length of an entire wall with FBI-inspired scribbles, lines drawn between names, photos, locations. A massive map filled with pins dominates another wall, and in the center, an L-shaped desk topped by an ocean of paperwork: prison profiles, news clippings, mugshots, transcripts. 

Art thief. _My ass_.

The worst part of her wants to step forward, plunge into the piles and read for days, break into her hard drive just to torture herself with every single fucking detail Villanelle has kept from her, but she freezes. 

In the center of one wall, one photo traps her dead in her tracks. 

Kenny, grinning awkwardly, with an additional smiley face scrawled next to his portrait in purple Sharpie.

-


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Think harder._
> 
> _You know me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go... let's do this.

**_(2003)_ **

_"Look at me," Mama says, reaching across the IV tube for Oksana's hand and squeezing as tight as her weakened state permits. "Do you know how special you are?"_

_Oksana shrugs. It's hard to look her in the eye. Hard to look anywhere but the crisp white wrapping of gauze around Mama's wrist. She'd tried to leave, selfishly abandon Oksana to the whims of her father, and Oksana isn't sure she can ever forgive her for that. It is hard to forgive weakness in others when you are always forced to be strong._  

_"If I'm so special why did you want to leave me?"_  

_Mama squeezes her eyes shut. It presses out a fresh spill of tears and Oksana watches them fall, drip-drops that darken the rough infirmary sheets._  

_"I never wanted to leave you. I just... I couldn't..."_  

_Oksana can't blame her, but she won't say so just yet. She's going to stay angry as long as it suits her. Maybe she should have left her in the bathtub, never picked up the phone, if that's what Mama wanted. She'd wanted out, and now it's Oksana's fault she's lived to suffer another day._  

_"You have to promise me, no matter what happens, that you will look for the right kind of happiness."_

_"What is the right kind?" Oksana isn't quite sure she's familiar with any kind, right or wrong._  

_Mama smiles. "The kind that fits you. Don't look for anyone else's happiness, it won't work for you. Don't let anyone tell you what you want, or what you should do, or who you should be. Never be less than what you are. Never compromise. Never settle. Never give up."_  

_Oksana pulls her hand away. "You did."_

 

_-_

 

Quick. Quiet. Breathe. 

Eve repeats the instructions to herself, over and over, as she climbs the stairs on tiptoes and crosses the bedroom. She recites a mental checklist (phone, passport, wallet) as she maneuvers through the dark in what she prays is silence, sparing glance after glance at Villanelle's sleeping form. Phone, forget the charger. Too noisy to unplug. Toiletries can stay. She pockets the phone, carries her open suitcase downstairs with the remaining clothes that sat within, only zipping it closed when she reaches the front door.

She toes around for her shoes by the rug, wriggles them on as she Googles the nearest taxi service and calls them from the pantry, flush against a stack of rice mixes. 

Thirty minutes before anyone can get here at this hour, and Eve thinks she might die. 

There's no reason Villanelle would wake, but Eve is convinced of the worst. She doesn't allow herself to consider the impossibilities, the optimistic wishfulness she's aching to believe. She can't afford the risk of trusting, not when it's someone else on the line. Not when it's Kenny.

She texts him, over and over, too afraid to dial. No response. She fiddles with the airline app, trying to reschedule, but it tells her she'll have to call. She cooks up up a dozen explanations for all of it, any of it, each less convincing than the last, before a set of tires comes crackling down the driveway, then the flood of headlights beaming through the window. If Villanelle is still asleep, there's a good chance Eve's only got seconds left. 

She hoists up her suitcase, gives Pakak a final kiss on the head, and slips out the front door with stalled breath and thundering heartbeat. Not bothering with the trunk, she shoves her suitcase into the backseat ahead of herself and clambers in after it, pleading "Drive" as firmly as she can. 

"Eve?" 

Eve is halfway through wrenching the car door shut when she realizes the front door of the cabin has swung open, Villanelle's lanky, robe-clad figure filling its length. Eve can scarcely make out her backlit face, but the confusion is palpable. 

Their eyes meet, time stops. Just for a moment, Eve thinks twice, until every consequence of every risk she's ever taken comes pouring into her brain.

Bill. Niko. Hugo. Fucking Gemma. Fucking _Raymond_. 

Kenny... 

" _Drive_ ," she says again, yanking the door closed and flipping the lock. "Airport. Please."

She doesn't know why she does it—why she cranes her neck around as the cab wobbles down the driveway to see Villanelle running after them, barefoot, screaming Eve's name. 

Eve spins her head back around and closes her eyes until they're too far away for her to hear anything but the rush of tires over pavement.

 

-

 

Villanelle calls, en route, but Eve doesn't answer. She texts, vague bullshit that only validates Eve's decision, and after awhile, Eve ignores those too.

_Please pick up._

_It's not what you think._  

_I can't talk here, it's not safe._  

_Eve?_  

_Think harder._

_You know me._  

Like hell.

The last one stings, and if it weren't for Kenny, Eve would turn off her phone. She misses the nineties, misses the satisfaction of being able to hang up properly, slam the receiver down with crashing finality. 

Why did she expect anything else? Why is she surprised? Why was she so fucking _stupid_  to let even half her guard down to trust anything this woman said?

The anticipated rush of relief floods her senses as she stumbles into the airport, only to realize she can't make it through security unless she's got a ticket that's leaving in the next few hours. By the mercy of every god in history, there's one seat left on a B-grade airline—departure in thirty minutes with a nine-hour layover in New York, because fuck _everything._

Everything is autopilot from that point forward—shuffling through the line of traffic waiting to be admitted. Passport and boarding pass ready, shoes off, belts off, anything with metal, phones and purses in the bin, toiletries out in a quart-size bag—well there's one thing she can skip.

The officer waves her through the scanner. Somehow she makes it through without incident. Somehow she waits for her carry-on and wrenches it off the conveyor. Somehow she stuffs her feet back into her shoes and her phone back into her pocket and somehow, somehow—

" _Eve!_ "

Eve's body turns in slow motion of its own accord, conditioned to the voice. 

Villanelle has managed to throw on clothes—sweatpants, t-shirt, a pair of flip flops, if that even counts—but her hair is everywhere. She hasn't even bothered to twist it up and out of the way. It hangs loose around her shoulders, limp strands clinging to the damp, glistening skin of her face and neck. Her chest heaves with effort, mouth parted, like she's been running for her life. 

"Eve!" she calls again, surging forward with no regard to the line, the crowd, the guards. Her entire focus, every thought, every sense is zeroed in on Eve, and Eve can't pretend it isn't mutual. "Eve, _wait_!" 

She crosses some unspoken threshold and the guards begin to move, call her back, announce their warnings from a distance, but Villanelle doesn't stop, just keeps marching toward Eve, no consequence in sight. Eve tries to find her voice, tries to yell _stop, you fucking idiot, I'll come back through_ , but her throat has sealed shut.

It unfolds sickeningly, the closing in of the guards just as the distance between them shrinks enough to expose the wet streaks over Villanelle's cheekbones, the anomaly of fearless terror burning bright in her eyes. Eve only has a second to stamp it into memory before the scene bursts into chaos, Villanelle's strong body stripped of autonomy as uncountable pairs of hands clamp down around her arms, pulling her back. She's still crying out, pleading for Eve's attention, weaving in and out of one language after another like she's searching for one that'll stick—but she doesn't fight, not hard at least. She must retain enough presence of mind to weigh the outcomes of a struggle, quickly and wisely. 

Eve can't keep looking, can't stand there frozen to watch her dragged out of sight. That isn't an image she can bear to have burned into her mind's eye for the rest of her life. 

Instead, she forces herself to turn, to walk, and walk, and walk, until she can no longer hear her name. 

Thirty thousand feet in the air feels far enough away to stop holding back tears.

 

-

 

Four missed calls from Kenny greet her in New York, and all the air spills from her lungs. She dials as fast as her phone allows, but doesn't even make it to hello. 

"Stop texting me," Kenny says by way of greeting. "Just. Delete all the texts you sent." 

"What? _Why_?!"

"We can't talk about this. Are you home?"

"Not 'til morning, I'm on a layover, are you okay?" 

"I'm fine. Call me when you land, I'll meet you at yours." 

"Kenny, what the—" 

"Delete your texts. I'll meet you." 

Any answers Eve had hoped to earn have only branched exponentially into new questions, each more infuriating than the last—but she obeys and deletes. Villanelle's too, for good measure. What doesn't make any sense is that they've both more or less told her the same thing without actually telling her anything—like there's something huge she's missed. 

But Villanelle, for her part, hasn't said anything else—and really, Eve thinks, that says it all.

 

-

 

It is the longest flight of the longest flights, and Eve can't even get herself to sleep. She twists open bottle after bottle of shitty miniature airplane wine, for nothing. The coffee is worse. 

Half still buzzed, half awake and half dead, she arrives on her doorstop with no clue what day it is, let alone time. 

Kenny's waiting on her doorstep, and Eve simply launches herself into his arms in a floppy, finished sort of way that she hopes passes for a _glad you're alive_  hug.

"No," Kenny stiffens, gently pushing her back to arm's length. "You don't want to, trust me." 

"Why?"

"You're gonna be mad at me."

Eve stares. 

"Can we go inside?" 

Eve obliges, wrenches the lock open with scarcely enough time to drop her bag and keys before— 

"We've been working together."

Eve turns around slowly as the door clicks shut, and blinks. "...We." 

"Me, and... Villanelle." 

Eve's brain flips upside down. 

"Okay," she says calmly, then, " _What?_ " 

"It's not—what you think. It started after Rome. It's completely under the radar, MI6 hasn't got a clue." 

Eve tries to sit, but there's nothing to sit on. She settles for drooping awkwardly against the wall, trying to make thoughts happen. 

"...Carolyn?" is her first one. 

Kenny shakes his head. "Just me." 

"But. _Why_?"

"We needed each other's skills. We had a common goal. Well. Two, actually." 

"Which was..."

"Destroy the Twelve, and... keep you safe. And that meant... keep you out of it."

Eve bristles, suddenly awake as the pieces start shifting into place. "Keep me out of what? My _job_?" 

"That's not your job, not anyone's job, not anymore," Kenny says firmly with an impressive anomaly of confidence. "Don't you understand? It's not safe!"

"Oh, right, of course!" Eve snaps, launching herself off the wall with a surge of renewed outrage. "But  _this_ is?"  

"If you'd just listen—" 

"No really, tell me how this is safe. You two playing secret crime buddies, are you kidding me? You _despise_  her!" 

"I _need_  her, and she needs me. Don't you want the Twelve gone? After what they've done to you—to us? To _her?_ " 

"Oh, please _—"_  

"Don't, Eve. Don't pretend you don't care about her, because no matter what I think about it, we both know you do." 

"And what makes you think no one else knows? That no one's keeping tabs on you? What makes you think you can trust her?"

"Eve—" 

"You don't even know her! Don't you realize why I came home?!"

"I do," a tired Russian timbre proclaims from somewhere behind them. "And if you hadn't run off like a total dickhead, I wouldn't have had to go all _Love Actually_  on your ass."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Seriously, you can get away with anything if you start talking to men about periods."_

**_(2013)_ **

_"Do you love me?" Nadia asks when Oksana has her on her back, three fingers inside her, unrelenting—just the way she likes it._

_"Of course," Oksana tells her, breathless and sweating, because Nadia is loyal and lonely and deserves to be loved back and all that minutia. Plus, it's easier to say it than deal with the fallout._

_"Tell me."_

_Oksana closes her eyes, and Anna is there. She is always there._

_"I love you," she says automatically, hoping Anna can hear her, wherever she is._

_**I will never love another,** she'd told her, and she won't. Not ever, ever, ever. No one will ever be fiercely strange or exhilarating enough to understand her, accept her, thrill her._

_In the chill dark of their cell, she tries to imagine Anna saying it back, but the words come from a voice unknown, faceless and foreign._

_-_

"You know, if you hadn't been so impatient and pig-headed, you could've waited a few hours for the direct flight."

Eve hears a sigh, first, before a shadow in the corner armchair begins to unfold itself. Long limbs step into the light, a lazy sway of hips, as Villanelle establishes herself with a defiant, cross-armed slump against the back of the sofa. Sweatpants, flip-flops and all. She looks thoroughly, magnificently _done_.

"Do you know how hard it was for me to get here? I am running out of good passports."

Eve blinks. Lack of sleep can cause hallucinations, who knows.

"How..." she attempts. "How did you... how did you get through security?"

"I told them you had early-onset dementia and had forgotten your lady products." She brandishes Eve's vinyl bag of toiletries like a golden ticket. "Seriously, you can get away with anything if you start talking to men about periods."

"Is that how you got me to stay up till six in the morning breaking into the FSB password vault?" Kenny asks.

"No!" Villanelle says with wide, offended eyes, turning suddenly to Kenny. "I really did have cramps."

"Oh. Okay. Um, who's looking after Pakak?"

"Tulok has him, as usual. Howdy, partner, how's it goin'?"

"Good. Hi. You look... well."

Villanelle grins. "I've been having a lot of sex."

"I'm _sorry_ ," Eve snaps, "am I interrupting something here?!"

Villanelle's face sobers. "Eve, wait..."

Eve doesn't wait. She lunges forward, pinning Villanelle to the sofa, which absolutely is not as sexy as it sounds, especially considering they both smell exceptionally like airport.

" _You told me you were stealing Renoirs!_ "

"I am!"

"Then what the hell is this?!"

Villanelle smiles sheepishly. "Side hustle?"

"Are you fucking—"

"I'm _joking_ , are you going to listen or not?"

In the two and a half seconds it takes to release the words, Villanelle smoothly flips them around and backs Eve into the nearest wall—gently, but with efficiency and purpose. She steps back when Eve glares at her, unimpressed.

Villanelle sighs, weary, but there's a spark in her eyes. She's _excited—_ like it's a wash of relief to finally confess.

"I'm going to find them, Eve. All of them."

"Who?"

"The Twelve—and everyone they control. I've been hunting them since I left Rome, but... I needed help." She nods toward Kenny, who ducks his head shyly. "I know who they are now, I just have to find them—and I am. I'm picking them off one by one like mosquitoes."

She steps forward again, into Eve's space, hesitant but determined.

"They will pay for everything they did to me. To us."

Eve looks appraisingly at her, unconvinced.

"And Kenny?" she demands. "Why did you have to drag him into this? Why did you have a _picture of him_ in your office next to all your dead handlers?"

"Did you not see the smiley face? It means we are friends now!"

"Um," Kenny pipes up, "that's not—I wouldn't—go that far."

Villanelle rolls her eyes.

"I needed him, and he needed me. Don’t you get it? As long as they're alive, none of us are safe. Shit, the only reason you’re still alive is because they think if I’m busy mooning over you I’ll forget about them." She smiles wickedly. "Never underestimate a multi-tasker.”

Something clicks in Eve's brain, sets off a series of gears that clank heavily into place.

"He told you to uninvite me, didn't he?" Eve challenges, closing in on them both. "When he found out I was going to see you—that's why you tried to talk me out of it!"

Kenny shakes his head. "I was just trying to—"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Keep me safe."

"Don't be mad at him," Villanelle pleads. "I made him promise not to tell you anything."

"By that she means threatened my life," Kenny says.

"Worked, didn't it?"

Eve presses her palms against her eyelids, as though it might shut out this goddamn circus of an alternate universe she's tumbled into. Her head is spinning as she turns to Villanelle.

"How long has this been going on?"

"You say it like we're having sex or something."

"Oh my god, that would be so much better than this."

Villanelle makes a face. "It really wouldn't. No offense," she adds to Kenny.

"None taken."

Villanelle sighs. "You don't know your friends very well, do you, Eve?"

Eve blinks. "Excuse me?"

"All Kenny ever wanted was to prove he could do something on his own, out of his mother's shadow. Something that mattered."

Eve looks expectantly at Kenny, who has suddenly become fascinated by the area rug beneath his feet.

"She didn't pressure you?" Eve asks softly.

Kenny shrugs and shakes his head. "She just asked me if I wanted to help her hunt down the Twelve. I... I thought of turning her in, but I realized... what's the point? Still can't trust which side Mum's on, anyway, and Villanelle had already done half the research. We had a much better chance working together."

"So..." Eve realizes suddenly, "you knew where she was. The whole time."

Kenny stares at the floor.

"We had to trust each other," Villanelle says.

"Of course you did!" Eve laughs hysterically. "Of course. Isn't that just fucking _perfect_ , you two are off, what— _hunting Horcruxes_ , and I'm—how many are left, anyway?"

"Seven, plus keepers," Kenny answers quickly, apparently eager to be of help. "There are more of them than Horcruxes, and we don't have Hermione."

"You are better than Hermione," Villanelle tells him with a warm smile, and the kid fucking blushes.

(No one is immune...)

"Lovely," Eve concludes with a defeated sigh. "And I just _had_  to be left in the dark, didn't I?"

"You would have wanted to help—"

"No _shit_ , Sherlock! I've been after them since day one! I have the skills, this is my _job_ , of _course_ I want to help _—"_

"And I want you safe," Villanelle says with a final, determined sort of shrug. "Fuck me, right?"

"Yeah, fuck you," Eve agrees. "I don't want your protection! I'm not some fucking porcelain doll that you keep on a shelf, okay?"

"Oh god, please," Villanelle winces visibly, "any metaphor but that."

"You don't get to decide what I'm willing to risk!" Eve soldiers on. "And you sure as fuck don't get to lie to me about it!"

"I am allowed to have secrets! That is not the same as lying!"

"You aren't allowed to have secrets that involve _me_! Not if we're gonna be—whatever the hell this is."

"I _don't. want. you. in. danger_."

"I don't want _you_  in danger!" Eve counters. "I don't want the next time I see you to be a ten-minute visit in a Russian prison, or find you bleeding out on the street!"

"Why do you care? Huh?" Villanelle prods, angry tears swelling in her eyes. "Why do you care _so much_ about what happens to me?"

"Because I fucking love you, you absolute _asshole_!"

Sound drains from the room. Every breath stalls, all three bodies frozen in place as the two women lock eyes.

Kenny is the first to show signs of life, shuffling awkwardly backwards toward the door.

"Um, I'm just gonna..."

Vaguely, Eve registers his footsteps and the click of the latch, leaving the two of them in a time-stopping, heart-racing staredown.

In the tiny space of an instant, Villanelle, refusing to believe, shakes her head.

"You don't," she says in a small voice.

"I fucking do too!" Eve bellows. "I am so, fucking, stupidly, _irritatingly_  in love with you! I love everything about you—okay, not everything, but most things, and even when I hate you, I love you. I love your gorgeous fucking hair and the way your stupid, gorgeous smile lights up your entire stupid face, I love your dimples and your boobs and your accent, the way you taste and the way you touch me and the way you shovel food into your mouth like a fucking toddler. I love how—how  _human_ you are, how _super_ human you are, how unpredictable and dangerous you are, and I want to share your ridiculous life with you and your stupid dog, I want to hunt down international crime organizations and eat breakfast naked and fuck on the piano and watch Netflix with you. I want to do everything with you, even though it'll probably get dull and ordinary and one day we'll murder each other over how to load the dishwasher. Okay?!"

Villanelle's face is a strange, messy mix of euphoric and tear-stricken. "I've never had a dishwasher."

"Fine! I'll wash, you dry."

And then Villanelle is lunging forward, kissing the very breath from her body, and Eve is alive once more.

It is a long, long time before they come up for air, and Eve is suddenly very glad Kenny knew when to dash. Villanelle's hands are tangled in her hair and her eyes are darting all over Eve's face, like she's waiting for the punchline, waiting for the _gotchya_ , the catch that makes it too good to be true.

Eve cups her stupid, gorgeous face in her hands. "Are you gonna say it back, or what?"

Villanelle nods feverishly. "I love you too. And... I know you're not mine, but... I am yours."

"You idiot. I've been yours since the first time you looked at me."

Villanelle beams, and it's so beautiful Eve is forced to drag herself down a notch back to reality.

"Look," she says, steeling her face into something grown up as she takes hold of Villanelle's hands. "It's not always gonna be like this, you know? Relationships get... boring. You argue, you hurt each other..."

"We do that already, silly. And I get bored on my own, I'd rather do it with you."

Eve smiles, but brief. "And... if one of us wants out? If... if it doesn't work?"

Villanelle shrugs. "I won't try to kill you."

"I won't either."

For a moment, they separate. Eve extends her hand, and they shake on it.

Villanelle smiles. "Want to find some Horcruxes?"

" _God_ yes."

 

+   +   +

 

**_(2020)_**

"Wait, wait, wait—" Kenny leaps from his swivel chair, shoving a freshly printed stack of papers into Villanelle's hands. "Addresses. Diaries. Photos."

Villanelle nods absently and stuffs them into the mesh side pocket of her backpack.

Kenny rolls his eyes, " _Honestly_ ," and retrieves them, relocating them to the inner zipper pocket. "Burn it the second you get there."

Villanelle nods.

"Got your passport?"

Villanelle nods.

"Ticket?"

"Kenny, she's a professional," Eve _tsks_ , eyes fixed on her monitor.

Villanelle, wide-eyed and silent, accepts the forgotten ticket from Kenny's hand and holds a finger up to her lips.

"Careful," Kenny says, backing away. "Don't, you know... be yourself."

Eve snorts and wrenches herself from her workstation. Villanelle is still rolling her eyes when Eve reaches her, and Eve keeps a solid meter of space between them, assessing her ability to let go.

"Be careful," she repeats with as much pragmatism as she can manage.

Villanelle smiles. Licks her lips. Eve ignores it.

"Fuck's sake,"  Eve fusses, stepping forward to adjust Villanelle's near-invisible earpiece. "Turn on your mic this time."

"Yes, _mum_."

"Fuck you."

"I love you too."

They watch one another for a moment, mesmerized. This part hasn't changed, not yet. Not the shivers that race down Eve's spine or the swirl of emotion in the pit of her stomach. The words haven't yet lost their novelty, their dazzling effect that leaves both of them giddy and Kenny in the depths of discomfort. She yanks Villanelle into a short, tight hug, whispers a " _love you_ " into her ear, and releases her.

Not to be outdone, Villanelle draws her into a deep, searching kiss, and is gone.

Silence hits—a quick, efficient blow, suffocating and thick. Eve stares hard at the door.

"She's gonna be okay," Kenny says, and Eve forces herself to breathe.

"I know."

"Are you?"

Eve turns to face him, surprised to find the smile already tugging at her lips.

"Yeah," she says. "I am."

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for taking this journey with me and for the lovely feedback/kudos! You all made this a joy to write; hopefully inspiration will strike again soon. In the meantime, have a pic of my ~~boobs~~  [KE shirt](https://www.instagram.com/p/B0bbU1xhn30/?igshid=18rsavqvcbgi8).
> 
> Feel free to keep in touch! Until season three, then... ❤️


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